100 Pages a Day:
Part One – Part Two – Part Three

Another in the Canongate series, featuring global writers retelling myths.

Imagine what it would be like to leave a place where all your needs were met for a place in which you now have  freedom of movement but must scrabble to meet your needs?

Adam had everything he wanted:  a home, a thriving tailor business, food, a car that ran, women …

One day Evelyn quits her job waiting tables and comes home to find Adam having sex with one of his clients in the the bathtub.  Enough already, Evelyn decides, and leaves to take the vacation to Hungary she and Adam had planned together without him.

Adam cannot understand what has gotten into Evelyn.  He packs his car, including pet turtle, and heads off to follow her and friends, Simone and Michael, into Hungary.  Throughout most of the book, he simply does not comprehend why Evelyn is so angry with him.

There is bickering galore as Evelyn tries to tell Adam why she’s mad, why she’s sleeping with Michael, and why she’s decided not to go back to East Germany, but wants to head into the West to make her own way.

Set against the history of politics in Eastern Europe (there’s a chronology included) and the fall of borders and, eventually, the Berlin Wall, Adam + Evelyn is Ingo Schulze‘s (German) version of what happens to Adam & Eve after God expels them from Eden and they must make their own way in the world.

Part One – Part Two

Pages 199 – 284
Adam & Evelyn keep arguing, about nothing. It’s practically boring now. They’ve made it to the West, just as their car dies for good.

In their hotel room, Adam finds a copy of the bible and begins to read the creation story of Adam & Eve in Genesis.

The next morning, at breakfast, the mechanic returns to tell them he’ll buy the car from them.  There’s just no fixing it.

Taking the money, they phone Adam’s aunt and uncle asking for a place to stay while he and Evelyn get settled in West Germany and begin again.

There’s an interrogation of sorts in an embassy so they can get their papers sorted and their continued living in the West will be approved.  Adam continues to carry the bible he took from the hotel in Bavaria.

More bickering.  Adam thinks getting to the West is going to be disastrous.  Evelyn looks at it as a positive thing, at least she’ll get to go to university now.  There’s a reunion with Katja, who introduces them to her boyfriend, Markel.

Evelyn learns she is pregnant.  Adam wants to know who the father is, him or Michael.  While staying with Adam’s family, he starts to look for clients but discovers that women buy ready-made off the rack and don’t want a custom tailor.  He grouses.  Evelyn keeps trying to cheer him up, to no avail.

The wall between East and West Germany comes down.  Those from the East are skeptical that this will change anything.  Adam returns to his home in the East and finds it trashed.  Appliances have been stolen, the photos of Adam’s models in his creations have been torn apart.  Even his bicycle has been stolen.  He returns with the box of photographs.  Evelyn, thinking he can use them as a portfolio, tapes them back together and, with Katja, puts them in albums.

Soon, Adam has a part-time job with a shop doing alterations.  Evelyn has been accepted to university.  Katja and Marek help them get into a room in the same house Katja and Marek live in.

The book ends with Adam standing in the backyard of his new home standing over a fire and burning his photographs, giving a short laugh over each photo.  Evelyn watches from the kitchen, while the neighbors watch in alarm.  Evelyn, at last, feels content.

Part One – Part Three

Pages 100 – 198

Tension crackles.  Between the five:  Adam, Evelyn, Katja, Simone, Michael and later, Pepi, whose parents own the home at which they’re all staying.

There is also political tension in the air, people are gathering at borders trying to get from Eastern Europe to the West.  But even to move from East Germany to Austria and then on to Hungary takes a lot of effort and forbearance.  Everyone must have their papers in order, and even then, crossing anywhere isn’t a guaranteed thing.

Adam really doesn’t understand why Evelyn is mad at him.  He just doesn’t understand how having sex with his clients should matter when she’s the one he loves.

Evelyn starts having sex with Michael which really perturbs people, especially Adam.  None of the main characters seem to really know what they want, except to be angry at each other.

At a bar, Micheal’s car gets broken into.  All his and Evelyn’s papers have been stolen.  Adam drives them, including Katja, to the embassies in Budapest.

Michael tries to explain to Adam what it’s like to live and work in West Germany.  The differences between East and West.  Adam really sees no reason to leave the East, which mixed up Evelyn has now decided that she wants to leave.

Michael has overstayed his vacation days from his job and heads back.  Evelyn starts having sex with Adam again.  These two continue to argue about everything and nothing.

The news is reporting that in a few days, the borders will be completely open and people will be able to come and go more easily.  Adam is skeptical.  Evelyn is hopeful.

Part Two – Part Three

Another in the Canongate Myth series, featuring global writers retelling myths.

Part One:  Pages 1-99

Adam is a tailor who likes his female clients a bit too much.  Evelyn walks in on him one day, pants at his ankles, with another woman.  This is too much.

They had planned a trip to Hungary, so Evelyn leaves without Adam.  She goes with her friend Simone, and her cousin from West Germany, Michael.

And Adam?  Adam decides to stalk Evelyn across East Germany into Hungary.  At first, he keeps pace with them, but loses them in Prague in the Czech Republic.

Thinking he knows where Evelyn is going, Adam proceeds to drive, stopping at road stops to take care of necessities.  At one, a woman named Katja asks for a ride to, basically, anywhere.  Adam agrees, and they continue on his way.

When they reach the final destination of Lake Balaton in western Hungary, Evelyn’s friend Simone finds them and gives directions to the place where the rest are staying.

This is set in 1989 just before the Berlin Wall fell.  There are border checks, with tension between the characters about how to get across each border without being pulled over for further searches.  Katja has no papers and Adam sneaks her over the border in the trunk of his car.

I’m enjoying the way Schulze tells this story.  It has good pacing and is filled with interesting tidbits alluding to the way life must have been for the young citizens of Eastern Europe when things were changing, but not obviously so.