Book challenge
Thursday, December 23rd, 2010 12:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mothwing57.
56.
Lehrerzimmer, by Marcus Orths.
Grotesque German satire on schools after PISA, though it's closer to reality than one might assume, sadly. Trainee teacher Kranich arrives at his new school in Baden-Württemberg where the headmaster's draconic regime has caused the teachers to form a secret resistance. This very short novel is sadly too absurd to entertain on one end and too realistic to be funny on the other. The plot, much-lauded as Kafkaesque and Orwellian, is more of a collection of bizarre anecdotes loosely connected by a very short plot. I was disappointed.
Grotesque German satire on schools after PISA, though it's closer to reality than one might assume, sadly. Trainee teacher Kranich arrives at his new school in Baden-Württemberg where the headmaster's draconic regime has caused the teachers to form a secret resistance. This very short novel is sadly too absurd to entertain on one end and too realistic to be funny on the other. The plot, much-lauded as Kafkaesque and Orwellian, is more of a collection of bizarre anecdotes loosely connected by a very short plot. I was disappointed.
56.
Föhn mich nicht zu, by Stephan Serin.
Another novel on the pains of being a trainee teacher in Germany. Some anecdotes are funny, at times the humour is extremely forced, and where it is forced, it's completely out of line and very crude, but the parts which aren't forced really are funny. There were several situations which I sadly immediately recognised and it makes sense that most of the trainees in my year purchased and read this book. Still, it has serious issues, like the fact that I think we're meawnt to sympathise with the narrator, but I am not about to sympathise with a trainee intent on rating the breasts of his students or telling them to work as a sex worker if they get their answers wrong.
Another novel on the pains of being a trainee teacher in Germany. Some anecdotes are funny, at times the humour is extremely forced, and where it is forced, it's completely out of line and very crude, but the parts which aren't forced really are funny. There were several situations which I sadly immediately recognised and it makes sense that most of the trainees in my year purchased and read this book. Still, it has serious issues, like the fact that I think we're meawnt to sympathise with the narrator, but I am not about to sympathise with a trainee intent on rating the breasts of his students or telling them to work as a sex worker if they get their answers wrong.
