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A Small Revolution in Germany (2020)

von Philip Hensher

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394631,897 (3.58)2
A Small Revolution in Germany is about growing up, or refusing to accept what growing up means; it's about the small dishonest pacts that people make with their own futures; and it's about the rare and joyous refusal to be disillusioned. Everyone remembers what it's like to be seventeen. The conversations you have; the ideas that burst on you; the kiss that transforms you. And then you grow up, and make a deal with adulthood. A Small Revolution in Germany is about that rapturous moment when ideas, and ideals, and passion crash over one boy's head. And what happens in the decades afterwards? When you see the overwhelming truth when you are seventeen, why should you ever abandon that truth?   Spike is brought into a small, clever group of friends, bursting with a passion for ideas, and the wish to change the world. They smash up political meetings; they paint slogans on walls; they long for armed revolution; they argue, exuberantly, until dawn. In the years to follow, they all change their minds, and go into the world. They become writers, politicians, public figures. One of them becomes famous when she dies. They all change their minds, and make sensible compromises. Only Spike stays exactly as he is, going on with the burning desire for change, in the safe embrace of unconditional love. Alone from the old group, he is the only one who has achieved nothing, and who has never deviated from the impractical shining path of revolution he saw as a teenager. Thirty years on, photographs of the teenage group look like a bunch of celebrated individuals, with only one unknown face in it - Spike.… (mehr)
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My third read by Philup Hensher, and it's superb.
Narrator Spike recalls his politically charged teenage years. With a band of highly intelligent if, at times gauche and naive, socialist chums, life revolves around taking on the establishment...with much teenage bravado and self promotion. As they mix with a slightly older set, Spike meets his lifelong love, Chilean Joaquin..
Life moves on; the characters go off to university, forge careera, move away from the teen idealism. Re-inventing themselves, hushing up past activities, working the system...Spike and Ogden - once the leader (?) of the teenagers, now a political aide, take a holiday in the DDR....
And in the final section, Spike and Joaquin- the only ones who kept their youthful ideals, now nearly sixty, take a hiking holiday in Germany and tie up ends of their erstwhile clique.
I couldnt put it down. The evocation of life as an idealistic teen; the exploration of how we change to fit into society (or not).

"Ogden had not learnt the same lesson I had learnt. For him, still, politics consisted of what politicians choose to do to the people. Their agreement must be extracted, or the appearance of an agreement. Then the politician is free to do what he wants to them. For me political life is a matter of objecting from the floor, of making the individual voice heard." ( )
  starbox | Jul 18, 2021 |
This is one of those books that one begins to read without knowing what to expect, and then finds oneself being somehow captivated by the storytelling and the flow of the prose, until the end.

To be quite honest, the story is of a somewhat different era and there shouldn’t have been much with which to relate, yet somehow the story resonated enough for me to kept reading all weekend.

The author deserves a lot of credit for that, at least. ( )
  geoff79 | Jul 11, 2021 |
❧ audiobook review

Sometimes, as humans, we decide without consultation what would be best for people.

It made for a nice listen and the narrator was quite good. Spike was interesting character and his relationship with Joaquin is explored well. The political conversations and musings are thought-provoking, and Hensher certainly knows how to write witty dialogue. I'm just not sure what my thoughts are on this one. Overall, though, the prose was good, and it made for a nice addition to lgbt historical fiction. ( )
  rjcrunden | Feb 2, 2021 |
This was really interesting.
I have a soft spot for any fictional novel set in the GDR. This book very much revolves around the politics and the ideology of the characters (and how those opinions progressed/ceased to exist in later life).


A small revolution in Germany is cleverly split into three parts. The first part, mostly focused on the teenage years of Spike and his friends. I couldn’t quite get my head around because there was so much jumping around, into the future, back into the present (with no chapters or divisions for time period - we just went where the brain of the protagonist went).
The second part goes through the events that take place when Spike goes to the GDR with his old pal Percy Ogden in the late 1980s (it’s pretty eventful).
And the third part is spilt between the joining of stories together, what happened at university and what is currently happening in the present day (Spike and his boyfriend’s most recent holiday to the now unified Germany).
By the end, I had figured out the way the story was being told and I enjoyed it, I found the memories and storytelling a great way of bringing all the loose ends together.
The dialogue was full of character and Spike often goes off on these rambling monologues, which I found pretty funny.


Toward the end, Spike and Joaquin are discussing how so many opportunities for change have occurred in their lifetime, but everything truly has remained the same. That really resonates with today, I believe 2020 could be a turning point for us as humans, and we should not let it pass us by without action. ( )
  LaurenHadcroft | Oct 9, 2020 |
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When I was a boy, I liked to watch men at work.
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A Small Revolution in Germany is about growing up, or refusing to accept what growing up means; it's about the small dishonest pacts that people make with their own futures; and it's about the rare and joyous refusal to be disillusioned. Everyone remembers what it's like to be seventeen. The conversations you have; the ideas that burst on you; the kiss that transforms you. And then you grow up, and make a deal with adulthood. A Small Revolution in Germany is about that rapturous moment when ideas, and ideals, and passion crash over one boy's head. And what happens in the decades afterwards? When you see the overwhelming truth when you are seventeen, why should you ever abandon that truth?   Spike is brought into a small, clever group of friends, bursting with a passion for ideas, and the wish to change the world. They smash up political meetings; they paint slogans on walls; they long for armed revolution; they argue, exuberantly, until dawn. In the years to follow, they all change their minds, and go into the world. They become writers, politicians, public figures. One of them becomes famous when she dies. They all change their minds, and make sensible compromises. Only Spike stays exactly as he is, going on with the burning desire for change, in the safe embrace of unconditional love. Alone from the old group, he is the only one who has achieved nothing, and who has never deviated from the impractical shining path of revolution he saw as a teenager. Thirty years on, photographs of the teenage group look like a bunch of celebrated individuals, with only one unknown face in it - Spike.

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