Sleepless Days by Jurek Becker

First published:Schlaflose Tage, 1978 (English translation, 1979)

Type of work: Social criticism

Time of work: The 1970’s

Locale: East Berlin and a small resort in Hungary

Principal Characters:

• Karl Simrock, an East Berlin high-school teacher who later works as a bakery truck driver
• Ruth, his first wife and the mother of his daughter, Leonie
• Antonia, a former physics student who becomes his lover

The Novel

Sleepless Days narrates the story of an identity crisis precipitated by what may have been a heart attack. Karl Simrock, a high-school teacher in East Berlin, suddenly realizes that he is mortal and that, without ever being dissatisfied with a routine life, he spent thirty-six years waiting for some unspecified event that never came. It is time to take inventory. The apparent satisfaction with his life was an illusion born of powerlessness and a fear of commitment. In actuality, he is deeply disturbed by the fact that he has never dared to form an opinion and to make his voice count. His marriage is lackluster, held together by a tiresome bedroom routine. He cares little for either his daughter or his mother. In school, he is required to advocate a spurious moral code that is determined by the administration and not at all his own. Even though he has accepted Marxist principles as valid, he has never made an effort to examine their efficacy. Simrock realizes that he must either take his life in hand or live to regret a wasted existence. He decides to act. This decision takes courage, and its implementation drains him of energy. Yet in the end, his heart—which he had thought was in bad shape—is bearing up nicely, and anxiety becomes an energizing force.

The process of changing his life is often painful and, at times, deeply disappointing. It is a process of gain and loss. After divorcing his wife, Ruth, he falls in love with Antonia, a former physics student, and comes to trust her, only to learn that she never fully trusted him. Eventually, she attempts to escape to the West without him. East Berlin, with a housing shortage typical for a Communist state, has no apartments for divorced people, and Simrock is forced into an uncomfortable living arrangement with his mother until he moves into Antonia’s two-room, makeshift home.

He loses his teaching position because of insubordination and ends up driving a bakery truck to make a living. Even though he tries to retain his Marxist worldview and to have it confirmed by working as a laborer, he is soon forced to admit to himself that his fellow workers are motivated not by Marxist ideals of the proletariat working enthusiastically for the common good but by a spiritless attitude: “What do I care as long as I get by?” When Antonia ends up in prison, Simrock briefly cherishes visions of fighting the state bureaucracy, only to recognize that a common citizen in a Communist state cannot penetrate even the outermost walls of the power structure, which rules without considerations of an individual’s needs and rights. Simrock suffers, but he never regrets his decision to participate actively in life.

The Characters

Even though the novel is told by a third-person narrator, the protagonist has some rather obvious autobiographic traits. Like Karl Simrock, Jurek Becker lived in East Berlin when he wrote this novel, and Simrock’s concerns are those of contemporary intellectuals who believe that, in a closed Communist society, they are merely existing rather than living. Simrock is trapped not only by his environment but also by his own inertia. For years, practically throughout his adult life, he has successfully suppressed any urge to think independently or to act as an individual. A fear of the consequences of leaving his comfortable niche has slowly forced him into a vegetative state in which time passes unnoticed. Nothing but an occasional outburst of rage indicates that beneath Simrock’s calm outer appearance there exists a human soul. Simrock is a sensitive man who is not ashamed to weep. He is filled with self-doubt and often fearful. He is essentially a loner who does not easily relate to others. He blames his mother for his father’s early death and dislikes her matter-of-fact manner, yet he married Ruth, who seems to have a similar approach to life. He is without close friends and remains aloof from his colleagues in school.

Once Simrock embarks on his journey into a new existence based on self-determination, the complexity of his character allows him to develop new habits such as asking an acquaintance for help when he needs an apartment (his request is denied) or trusting Antonia enough to tell her that, in applying to the state for a summer job, he had reasons other than those stated in his application. (This kind of deception is an act of defiance, a rebellion for personal gain against the authorities.) Defiance marks his relationship with the representatives of the state. His courage slowly increases until, in the end, he is able to refuse an offer to be reinstated as a teacher, because the school administration’s demands would have violated his personal integrity. Simrock is finally able to sustain relationships, but all of his newfound friends, such as Boris, the other bakery truck driver, and Antonia, the woman he loves, are outsiders in a society which they no longer respect.

The novel is written entirely from the protagonist’s point of view. All other characters remain secondary and one-dimensional. Their significance derives from their involvement with Simrock. The women in the novel, Ruth, Simrock’s mother, and Antonia (Simrock’s daughter, Leonie, remains in the background), have traditional nurturing qualities. Ruth, in her brusque manner, reassures Simrock when he believes that he has suffered a heart attack. Later, she is deeply angered by his decision to divorce her but is well able to take care of herself and their child. The protagonist’s mother offers him her spare room, even though his presence in her apartment is inconvenient and she must sense that her son has no genuine love for her.

Antonia truly shares with Simrock his newfound life. She understands his concerns, because her own experience in a state whose leaders believe that they must quash any signs of individual development has been devastating. She was dismissed from the university because she voiced doubts about the usefulness of the study of “scientific socialism.” Her three-year marriage ended in divorce. Having asserted her independence, she is without friends or family. Her outlook on life has become somewhat cynical. The fact that she lives in a two-room storefront with a homey smell of vanilla underscores her nurturing character. The temporariness of this living arrangement reflects the insecurity which marks her life.

Critical Context

As the personal account of the identity crisis of a man in his thirties and as a political novel of social criticism, Sleepless Days joins the mainstream of the contemporary German novel, from Franz Kafka’s Der Prozess (1925; The Trial, 1937) to Gunter Grass’s Die Blechtrommel (1959; The Tin Drum, 1961) and Heinrich Boll’s Ansichten eines Clowns (1963; The Clown, 1965). Neither of these aspects renders the novel publishable in the German Democratic Republic. It appeared in the Federal Republic of Germany while the author was living, temporarily, as he says, in West Berlin. The fact that Becker writes as a dissident accounts for the novel’s more frequent classification as a political novel, while it is less often placed in the category of a psychological Bildungsroman. The novel is by no means a political tract. It simply develops the universal theme of an existential crisis against the backdrop of an oppressive society well familiar to the author. Similar to Becker’s other novels, Sleepless Days avoids moral outrage or frantic preaching. Its effect on the reader grows out of convincing arguments presented with clarity in a quiet and judicious manner. Becker disregards absolutely the prescriptive norms of Socialist Realism, a prerequisite for a successful writing career in a Communist state.

Bibliography

Binding, Paul. Review in New Statesman. XCVIII (November 30, 1979), p. 895.

Bremer, T. “Roman eines Storenfriedens: Uber Jurek Beckers Schlaflose Tage,” in Neue Rundschau. LXXXIX (1978), pp. 470-476.

Demetz, Peter. Postwar German Literature, 1986.

Howe, Irving. Review in The New York Times Book Review. LXXXIV (September 16, 1979), p. 7.

Wickenden, Dorothy. Review in The New Republic. CLXXXI (November 3, 1979), p. 38.