Eugen Ruge
Author of In Times of Fading Light
About the Author
Image credit: Wikipedia user Lesekreis
Works by Eugen Ruge
2013 1 copy
Associated Works
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Ruge, Eugen
- Birthdate
- 1954-06-24
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- Germany
- Country (for map)
- Germany
- Birthplace
- Sosva, Soviet Union
- Places of residence
- Berlin, Germany
Rügen, Germany - Education
- Humboldt University of Berlin
Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR - Occupations
- Autor
Regisseur
Übersetzer - Relationships
- Ruge, Wolfgang (father)
- Awards and honors
- Alfred-Döblin-Preis (2009)
Deutscher Buchpreis (2011) - Short biography
- Eugen Ruge ist ein deutscher Autor, Regisseur und Übersetzer aus dem Russischen. Eugen Ruge ist ein Sohn von Wolfgang Ruge. Nach einem Mathematikstudium und erfolgreichem Diplom an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin wurde Eugen Ruge wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Zentralinstitut für Physik der Erde der Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR. Bereits 1986 begann er mit seiner schriftstellerischen Tätigkeit. Seit 1989 wirkt er hauptsächlich als Autor für Theater, Funk und Film. Neben seinen Übersetzungen mehrerer Tschechow-Texte und der Autorentätigkeit für Dokumentarfilme und Theaterstücke, übte er zeitweise noch eine Lehrtätigkeit in Berlin und Weimar aus.
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Statistics
- Works
- 10
- Also by
- 1
- Members
- 689
- Popularity
- #36,713
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
- 28
- ISBNs
- 77
- Languages
- 13
It's not that long, only 300-odd pages, but it is long-winded and unnecessarily untidy and confusing in structure. It's a family saga trying not to be one, by fracturing the story into different time frames. It starts in 2001, retreats to 1951, then 1989, and so on, flipping through the 50s, 60s and 70s, with six segments on 1 October 1989 i.e. Wilhelm's 90th birthday, occurring just before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the USSR.
Each generation represents an era in East German history. As you can see in the trailer below, old Wilhelm Powileit is an unreconstructed proponent of communism, and on his birthday and at Christmas (and a funeral) the generations come together. There is his son Kurt Umnitzer, sent to the gulags for criticising the non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the USSR, eventually released into exile in the Urals for the best years of his life. He returns with a Russian wife, Irina, and becomes an historian of the GDR. (Ironically, his attempts to memorialise the GDR end with his own lapse into senility.) Wilhelm's grandson Sasha defects to the West just before the fall of the wall, abandoning his son Markus, born from a brief liaison with Melitta who — with her mini-skirts and bourgeois courtesies — represents the advent of values and consumerism from the west.
Wilhelm and his wife Charlotte are introduced during their exile in Mexico, from which they return when East Germany becomes a Soviet state. They are characterised as cantankerous in their own ways, resistant to change and not particularly fond of each other.
There's not much nostalgia in this novel, and Kurt's wife Irina tempers her nostalgia for her homeland in Siberia where she was a potato farmer with memories of its privations. She is the subject of set pieces in the kitchen: for Christmas she cooks a Burgundian Monastery Goose from a lavish 300-year-old recipe...
As anyone who's ever done a traditional Christmas for the Family knows, it takes forever in the kitchen, and the text takes us through the entire process. For Foodies, it's actually quite interesting, but its purpose is to lay the groundwork for a subsequent family meal which symbolises the collapse of traditions along with the table and Irina's sobriety.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/12/05/in-times-of-fading-light-2011-by-eugen-ruge-...… (more)