Elke Heidenreich's book tip of the week: "From getting up" by Helga Schubert

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Elke Heidenreich

Last year, the then eighty-year-old Helga Schubert received the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize.

I was amazed, because the Bachmann Prize usually reads out very cryptic Sturm und Drang texts and awards them.

And now an eighty-year-old, very modest, quiet GDR writer, because that was her.

She spent half of her life in the GDR and wrote a text and read it in Klagenfurt: "On getting up".

And under this title her new book has now been published by dtv, »Vom Aufstieg«.

There are 29 little stories from an actually unspectacular life, where she describes the harassment she was exposed to, everything that was not possible, how one had to bumble through in the GDR, how her husband was slowly getting old, sick, a need for care.

And she writes without malice, without hate, without accounting.

She calls it dwarf country, but she says: “That's how it was.

You had to come to terms. ”And she describes it very lovingly and says:“ Who cares? ”But it is such an unspectacular, inconspicuous life.

Who cares?

And yet you notice that she has enough self-confidence to know that she is a writer, as writers have been telling about life for thousands of years, regardless of whether it is a who knows how great life is or a small life.

Every voice is heard and at one point she also quotes Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, who said: “Not what we experience, but how we experience what we experience.

That's what defines our lives. ”And she experiences everything very gently, very kindly, very calmly.

Where I would have exploded a long time ago, she still has no peace.

"About getting up", she also writes about getting old.

And a major topic in the book is her mother, for example.

Her mother is a woman who was widowed very early, who has become bitter, who does not look benevolently at her daughter either.

Because the daughter is too much like the mother-in-law.

She doesn't like them at all.

But she takes them through war and flight and raises them, but without warmth.

And once Helga Schubert, already as an old woman, is over 70 at a conference and gets a consultation from a pastor and says: “I have such difficulties with the fourth commandment.

I can't love my mother. "And the pastor smiles and says:" You don't even have to.

The fourth commandment says 'We should honor our parents', there is no talk of love. ”And she is very comforted, goes away and can then be peaceful and reconciled with her mother, who dies at 101, until the end.

She's 76 herself. She describes all of that in this book, and it's funny too.

For example, she describes how she goes to an office with her fourteen-year-old son, the son wants to be a forester, and the official at the office has advertised a position as a forestry assistant and says: “Before you sit down and before I make your coffee : Do you have contacts or relatives in the West? "And she says:" No, we haven't. "" Then you can sit down.

Then you get a coffee. "And then she asks:" Why is that important for a fourteen-year-old who wants to work in the forest? "And then the man says:" Because we have a very special way of extracting larch seeds.

And they don't know that over there.

And that's not supposed to be revealed. ”Well, it's funny too.

But on the whole it's less funny than touching, very moving.

A simple, kind life, mildly and gently described.

And this book "Vom Auferstand" by Helga Schubert has reconciled me with the many hideous texts that I had to read from Klagenfurt.

This book really deserves it as a top title.