Walter Kempowski: All For Nothing

My current book. Very different from the last one...

Nearly done. Wow, this is numbingly depressing. Feel when reading as if overlain by a thick grey cloud of understated and inexplicable pain.

Well having now finished will confirm those initial feelings. The effect is compounded I think by both the style and vocabulary used ( as seen/heard/understood through translation which can always be tricky.) The vocabulary seems very plain and direct with little overt emotionalismn in it. This makes it frequently very powerful when the scenes described are intrinsically powerful and emotional. There is a numbness created in both the reader and, pretty consistently, in the characters too. The characters themselves seem also to have a certain numbness at what they are seeing and experiencing. A sort of emotional shell-shock I suppose.

In a bizarre way I am very glad I have read but am not sure to what extent ( if any) I 'enjoyed' it. It shows futility and pity of war astonishingly. If it were music it would be slow minimalism I feel.