TheDaak review

Book: Heroes Like Us, By Thomas Brussig, Translated by John Browhnjohn, Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000, ISBN: 0374527601, 262 Pages

By Deepak

Thomas Brussig’s Heroes Like Us (in German: Helden Wie Wir , 1998) is a satirical take on the socio-political landscape of East Germany and the events which led to the fall of the Berlin Wall. The protagonist and the narrator of the story, Klaus Uhltzscht, arguably in his fancy sits opposite a New York Times journalist, as the latter has come to interview Klaus because of his claim that he is solely responsible for the fall of the Berlin Wall. The reader witnesses the indulgent and entertaining narrator Klaus as he tells tales from his childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. An insight into his familial and school life is given to comprehend the making of a man whose phallus broke down the Berlin Wall.

Klaus presents himself not only as an indulgent but also as a notoriously delusional character. Through all the blown-up, grotesque tales that are related to Mr. Kitzelstein by the fanciful narrator, the lines between history and/or memory and its official account begin to blur. As Klaus sits in the position of the interviewee, he assumes total charge of the reins of the representation of history and evidently molds it as per his whims. The sentiments of the author, Thomas Brussig, and the narrator-protagonist, Klaus Uhltzscht, seem to come together and fuse into one single monologue about the complacency and the cryptic, mute revolt of the Mutti-Generation (mothers’ generation). Critiquing the solidarity of Christa Wolf, one of the most well-known authors from East Germany, with the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, the synchronized voice of the narrator and the author express: “I mean, how can one fairly assess the politics of a writer who has seldom if ever made an unambiguous political statement? Know what she says about Budapest 1956? That we sat in front of our radios filled with “concern”. Meaning what? Did anyone sit in front of his/her radio filled with relief? Did Ulbricht? Did Adenauer?” That both men – the narrator and the author – are bitter about the disinterested people of the GDR is also manifested in the sarcasm-filled narration that runs through the pages of the novel. By default, the illusion of power is bestowed upon men through the random, unmerited lottery of birth. The synergy of the author’s and the narrator’s voice give a sense of being robbed of this illusion as with the progress of the narration the title becomes more of a resentful question: Heroes Like Us?

The two find themselves in a paradoxical situation, wherein they are simultaneously powerful and powerless. Having been born in the “lesser” of the two German states, the more “feminine” one, these men feel they are constantly emasculated. This becomes evident and manifests in the towering, controlling figure of the narrator’s mother. The mother becomes the embodiment of the surveillance state and must “sanitize” not only the physical space in which the family resides but also the inner mind of the family. Hence, the german word Sex should become Sechs (meaning: six, pronounced almost similar to sex). The state qua mother becomes a panopticon and instills in the average citizen a fear of being always in a state of being watched, so much so that Klaus is taken over with immense guilt as in his teenage years he has wet dreams and buys new sheets with his meager pocket money. On the one hand, Klaus is a symbolic representation of the GDR citizens who were the victims of the all-powerful, all-watching communist state and hence becomes a meek spectator of his own life. However, on the other, he takes on control of his life in his later years and becomes a master of his narrative, which is often filled with disgusting deeds done with delusions of a madman, he finds himself an active element in the web of power. Sarcasm becomes a tool, a coping mechanism, with which this hollow entitlement becomes manifest. A critique of the East German people when his phallus is about to commit the heroic feat gives us a sense of this paradox: “It was a pathetic sight, Mr. Kitzelstein. There they stood, thousands of them confronted by a few dozen border guards, and they didn’t dare make a move. They shouted, “We are the people!,” the principal slogan of recent weeks, and somehow it hit the nail on the head. They were indeed “the people.” Who but “the people” would have stood there in such a docile, diffident way, shuffling from foot to foot and hoping against hope? This was how I knew them of old: timid and tractable and programmed to fail. I pitied them, somehow, because I was one of them. I was one of them. […] People of that kind often have undersized dicks, take it from one who knows.”

The ideals of the East German communist state become manifest in the delusions of Klaus as he feels he is the chosen one. He is convinced that he is chosen to save the life of the commander-in-chief Michael Gorbachev, thus becoming his right hand. The fact that Klaus can talk much about his imaginary achievements yet somehow fails to write more than a paragraph of his autobiography in two years further highlights the paradoxical power dynamics in which the narrator is trapped. The official narrative of history is propagated and mediated mostly by written texts. In that Klaus’ story must only stay content with remaining at the periphery and perhaps not actually finding a space in the New York Times, his masculine claim to voice and power is again robbed from him. The question however is that: he does speak, but is he getting heard?

It may not be too far-fetched to argue that, if anything, the novel presents a desperate cry for recognition from the men who feel that they have become powerless, emasculated, and effeminate because they were born into a particular state. Klaus Uhltzscht’s voice thus brings into language the concerns of these “helpless” men. Perpetually emasculated and infantilized by the means of surveillance, censorship and curbs on their freedom, these men develop a feeling of resentment towards the state qua mother.  In this backdrop. it becomes strikingly interesting to notice that the brunt of the narrator’s resentment is directed toward the Mutti-  and not the Vati-Generation (father’s generation). A revelatory aspect of the collective memory is brought forth herewith, in that such an accusation could very well have been directed against the Elterngeneration (parents’ generation), which would have been a more gender-neutral identifier. Having taken this particular nuance from the language of the narrative, it becomes clear that in the larger cultural landscape gender not only forms the structures of power, but also memory and history. Gender is highly powered, as power is highly gendered.

Although Klaus Uhltzscht and Thomas Brussig are two different entities, the former is a creation of the latter. Hence, the distance between evades at times, telling us that, in its totality, the novel is the voice of an author coming to terms with his past through the character that he has built. The novel is a conversation with the collective memory of East Germany through means of sarcasm, media, gender archetypes, and grotesquerie. At least, that’s one way of seeing it.

©TheDaak2023