There is a word in which, as in hardly another, the feeling of being taken care of and at Home resonates: cut. Cutting will not make just sick and tired of you community, too. You already know from Andreas Steinhöfels children’s book “Rico, Oskar and the deeper shadows”, where a woman Dahling gifted your “deep” neighbor boy Rico liver sausage sandwiches served while you watch in front of the TV together, love movies. They are called “Müffelchen”. In the novel “The wall pig” runs “The dream ship” in the Western television, as a grandma, Ilse grandson Aron with spices cut cucumbers and a bottle of shower offers. “Eat,” she says, “this is not good Thuringian liver sausage, you get all the days.”
Under the wall through cheating
We are at a new year’s eve, sometime in the eighties in East Berlin. Aron, 11, came for a few months at grandma’s, because his ambitious, tight line of faithful parents have been delegated to Moscow. The old woman is not, as regards their relation to socialism and the party, “a role model”, but because of their persecution in the time of national socialism as OdF, “victims of fascism”. She lives right next to the wall which cuts the city in two parts, on the Wolin road 56, whose cobblestone “cheating silently among the border plants through deep into West-Berlin”. Is completed, the residential community through a three-legged dog named Oscar, a black-brown white shaggy creature. Ilse had rescued it after an accident in front of the people police wanted to shoot the animal.
For dreams there are no boundaries, you can fly. Aron is a tinkerer, he builds models of aircraft and passenger dragon, which can move solely by using Wind and air currents in the sky. In theory, at least. He calls them “heavenly comrade”, or “Sputnik”, but has never tried it, if you are truly airworthy. At some point, because he is sure, will be the first Name in the book, “universe – earth – human”, as “pioneers of emission-free aircraft technology”, have revolutionized the air travel. Quite spectacular the adventure of the the book is is already. It should be based on a true story.
by the Way told the history of the GDR
“The wall pig” is the literary debut of Katja Ludwig, a surgeon from Berlin. She also works as a Storyteller with great precision, designs whimsical, not always lovable secondary characters, such as the meat trade saleswoman Fischhäuter and her husband Maxe, Slapstick and suspense moments of change. The history of the GDR is en passant, sometimes in words. The anti-lock system, one learns, was an agent of the section, a police officer, was in charge of the inhabitants of a district, and monitored. In front of him, Aron has to watch out for, after he has hunted with a new year’s eve firecrackers in a mailbox in the air. And Ilse is a “change-Omi”. As a Retiree, you may pass the border to the West. When she comes back, she has real coffee beans.
The concept of turning novel, you can take this literally. The “Wall of pigs” is a double book, from the one hand, Aron’s story is told, from the other side of Nora’s story, in the middle the two meet. Nora lives right on the other side of the wall, Wolliner Straße 46, look at the Sponti-slogans such as “let mankind be noble, rusk, and good,” or “In reality, the reality is quite different”. She is also 11, nothing she desires so much as a pet. Your Story is much weaker.
Guinea pigs in the pantry
Which brings us to the title character arrived. As the Miller family rushed out of the house by grandma Ilse disappears – you may leave for the Federal Republic, your Guinea pig. It’s called POM POM and ends up in the pantry, the butcher’s neighbours. Aron is for the burglar to get rid of it. What follows is a chase up on the house roof and a aviatisches art piece. Nora is experiencing it this way: “First you saw only one point of anything. A bird couldn’t it be, for him, the wings lacked impact, and the aircraft came from the direction of the East. It came from the Land beyond the wall. But what was it?“ Superman? No, a Rodent has learned by bite, soon the wall will fall.
Katja Ludwig: The wall pig. A Turning Book. With illustrations by Uwe Heidschötter. cbj Verlag, Munich, 2019. 216 pages, 13 €. From nine years ago.
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filming in Berlin, Rico, Oskar and the Engelke
Luisa Hommerich
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