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the complete review - fiction

Gretel and the Great War

by
Adam Ehrlich Sachs

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

B : enjoyable approach and take

See our review for fuller assessment.

  From the Reviews:

• "No staid work of history, this. Sachs draws from the madcap, darkly comic tradition of postmodern European fiction to reimagine the continent’s catastrophic destiny. (...) Throughout, we feel the author’s personal stake in this narrative. Like Thomas Bernhard before him, Sachs is a very funny writer unafraid of italics and exclamation marks, which he marshals against the absurdity of the world." - Dustin Illingworth, The New York Times Book Review
  
  
• "What seems at first to be occasionally echoing but largely unconnected stories turns out to be the more coherent narrative of a society in the process of coming unglued. (...) The Organs of Sense was a dense book, full of incident, yet always cohesive; at times, Gretel struggles to maintain a similar feeling, following unnecessary paths that can weaken individual stories." - Robert Rubsam, The Washington Post
  
  
• "(M)y summary makes Gretel and the Great War sound more coherent and summarizable than it really is. More than an experimentalist or even a satirist, Mr. Sachs is a dedicated comic writer." - Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal
  
  
• "Gretel and the Great War, then, is also a work of poetry, poetry because the narrative is driven by the demands of language rather than plot. Dedicated to its two cultural and scientific registers, Sachs’s book satirizes the ideologies of the nation and of positivism that extend into war. A large readership for this crazy book would make the world a safer and saner place." - Arthur Willemse, World Literature Today

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       Gretel and the Great War is labeled 'a novel' but appears to be presented as an abecedarium of stories whose origins are explained in a brief (one-page) introduction.
       It's a somewhat convoluted backstory: in 1919 a "mute young woman was found wandering the streets of Vienna". The neurologist whose care she was entrusted to wrote up her case for an academic journal -- asking then also for any information from anyone who might know her identity or history, and receiving a single reply, from a patient at a Carinthian sanatorium claiming to be her father. He says her name is Margarete -- known as Gretel -- and asks that the doctor continue their ritual of her being told a bedtime story daily; he provides one, and sends another daily until there are a total of twenty-six, after which he is never heard from again. The introduction notes that it is unknown whether the neurologist read the stories to the young woman, or what happened to her; the letters were eventually sent to Hans Prinzhorn's: "celebrated collection of the art of the mad", and while they were not included in his famous Bildnerei der Geisteskranken they turned up: "in his archives some eighty years later".
       The chapters -- the stories -- are labeled 'A' through 'Z' and each comes with a more or less alliterative chapter-summary-heading: 'The choirmaster can feel the congregation's contempt as he conducts the canonical composer's cantata ...' and the like. There are also connections between the stories, with recurring characters and variations on themes. Among the most significant presences is that of a Dr. Krakauer, with many of the characters -- mentally unstable (or at least considered so) in one way or another -- committed to his sanatorium
       The psychoanalytic atmosphere of the place and times -- Freud's Vienna -- pervades the novel, with many of the stories having the feel of case-study patient-dreams, often tinged also with a fairy-tale quality and with surreal and fantastical elements to them. Many different varieties of deep obsession -- often unattainable ideals -- as well as delusions are presented here. Relationships between parents and their children figure prominently -- with also the loving but absent father of Gretel often addressing her directly in his communications, commenting on his tales or wishing her a 'Good night' at the end of his stories.
       Among the stories is also one of a naturalist, who becomes so absorbed in a task that when he successfully completes it and:

takes his daughter's hands for a celebratory waltz he realizes that besides being all grown up now and nearly as tall as he, she has been struck dumb in the interim. She no longer laughs, squeals, or speaks. She keeps silent and stares straight ahead.

Yes, something really is growing inside of him ! The obstetrician can feel it kicking and thrashing. It's impatient, it is ready to be born, it yearns to see the light of day. But it's not a fetus. No, it is no fetus. It's a nation-state.

- M.A.Orthofer, 16 June 2024

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Links:

• FSG Originals publicity page
• Q & A

• Chicago Review of Books
• Kirkus Reviews
• Los Angeles Review of Books
• Publishers Weekly

• Official site

• See Index of Contemporary American fiction

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About the Author:

       American author Adam Ehrlich Sachs lives in Pittsburgh.

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© 2024 the complete review

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