André Brie, February 22, 2006; Review for „Neues Deutschland“ of the book by Harald Greib: “Berlin, please instruct!” 

The difficulties of satire to transcend reality

 

“Berlin, please instruct!” is a satirical novel on the reality and on the nomenklatura of the European Union, written by a man, who knows his way. Harald Greib himself has worked for ten years at the European Council, the mighty body of the national governments, in Brussels. The I narrator, Thomas Menzel, is a German diplomat; it is well possible that there is a lot of his creator in him, who has quit his service to the state and now lives in a small French village. In any case, it is a book that is very close to the bureaucratic Brussels and German reality. By the way, it is also a compact introduction to the history and the present of European institutions and the discussions on the future of European integration. Who does not want to take the pains to read dry academic books on it – here one also learns about it, but in an entertaining way. 

It is a pleasure certainly not only for the initiated to read this book. Europe is anyway too important than to leave it to bureaucracy, its sense and ever greater nonsense, of which Greib, not incorrectly, thinks: “The general Brussels attitude reminds me of socialist systems; a small élite determines the general weal and implements it to the benefit of all – the citizen, with his or her questions and own ideas, would only disturb and delay this process.” The book is the most satirical (in case there even is such a superlative) there, where it is probably the most authentic, for instance, when the I narrator is asked by his boss to express a brief note in formal official German and, on this occasion, lets the reader take part in the creation of an exchange between German bureaucracies. That is probably also the difficulty for the satirist: Many European documents and files may and can hardly be superseded at the satiric level. Greib’s fable: from an April fool’s joke, there develops in the free spin of the Brussels institutions yet an additional European agency, even though actually nobody wants and needs it, is actually not so far-fetched; and conversely, of many an idea for an urgently required European institution, there develops, in the reality of the fighting European and national interests, something that is more of an April fool’s joke. 

I would have wished to the dramaturgy of the book that the beginning constellation of an I narrator, who is a passionate advocate of European unification, and his counterpart and friend Jean (a journalist, who writes mainly on graft and corruption in Brussels) had been sustained for more than the first couple of pages. Yet, this as well is European reality: The grand idea is, if anything, only an instrument of power politics, no longer the real objective of people. Apparently, Greib wanted his I narrator to appear as naïve as to still believe in these lofty goals only in his look back to his beginning in office. To the publishers, I would have wished that they had been able at least to free the manuscript from the numerous orthographical mistakes, but where there is such a bloated bureaucracy, there of course hardly remains any money and personnel for literature and its editors. All the same: I recommend a very topical book, and if Europe is still important to you, the laughter will, as the publishers promise, get stuck in your throats. Mine still broke out somewhat more forcefully on occasion, nonetheless. And he or she who wants to get his or her Europe-sceptical judgement confirmed, may also laugh somewhat less untroubled. The material for that is supplied by the book, not by European reality. 

Harald Greib: Berlin, please instruct!, Mitteldeutscher Verlag, 271 pages.