Eulogy for the Living Taking Flight
Eulogy for the Living Taking Flight by Christa Wolf, published by Seagull Books in 2018, is a 129-page work that explores the complexities of memory and identity against the backdrop of Nazi Germany. This edition presents a fragmentary narrative that reflects Wolf’s profound abilities as a thinker and storyteller, capturing the nuances of her childhood experiences. The text delves into the challenges she faced in articulating her past, highlighting the tension between silence and expression during a tumultuous historical period.
In this poignant exploration, readers will find Wolf’s vivid recollections of her life as a middle-class grocer’s daughter, intertwined with the broader struggles of her family amid the rise of Nazism. The narrative reveals the everyday details of her upbringing, marked by both personal and societal conflicts. As the story unfolds, it also addresses the family’s flight from the advancing Red Army, encapsulating the urgency and fear of that time. Eulogy for the Living Taking Flight serves as a significant contribution to literary and biographical fiction, offering insights into the impact of historical events on individual lives.
Official synopsis Publisher
A fragmentary work that stands as a testament to Wolf’s skill as a thinker, storyteller, and memorializer of humanity’s greatest struggles.
Christa Wolf tried for years to find a way to write about her childhood in Nazi Germany. In her 1976 book Patterns of Childhood, she explained why it was so difficult: “Gradually, over a period of months, the dilemma has emerged: to remain speechless or to live in the third person, these seem to be the options. One is impossible, the other sinister.” During 1971 and 1972 she made thirty-three attempts to start the novel, abandoning each manuscript only pages in. Eulogy for the Living, written over the course of four weeks, is the longest of those fragments. In its pages, Wolf recalls with crystalline precision the everyday details of her life as a middle-class grocer’s daughter, and the struggles within the family–struggles common to most families, but exacerbated by the rise of Nazism. And as Nazism fell, the Wolfs fled west, trying to stay ahead of the rampaging Red Army.
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