So this is what a lonely 40-something guy writes. I never would've thought I'd have been so moved by a novel about a fat, loney 42-year old wallflower, although some recent events in my life may have contributed to that feeling. Ultimately, the story is about someone who feels useless, and so, abandons those that need her most. It's a message that's as heart-rending as Hey Nostradamus!'s is uplifting. Full of Coupland typical style, which I love, but may turn some off. It also has the type of ambiguous-but-not-really ending that seems meant to spark a "What happened? This is so deep." response, which, I think, is officially trite. I also like his atheistic take on religion, querying and mindful, rather than disrespectful.

I've got two strikes of bias against me reading this book. The first is that I pretty solidly come down on one side of the politics that divided Germany, and the second from the fact that I read it from a point in history that knows that the Berlin Wall is ultimately doomed to come down. So when Schneider's narrator debates the relative merits and shortcomings of either side, I see him shortchanging "my" side, and when Schneider's narrator treats the division of Germany as a permanent situation, I have to stifle a knowing giggle. While I doubt Schneider foresaw the fate of the Wall, I do think that he expected either side to approach his work from the same type of bias as I, if not necessarily from the same direction. Knowing that each side would feel victimized in this concise account of two Germanys, Schneider deftly and frequently reminds the reader of their own bias which refocuses attention on the paradoxically completely similar, yet wholly dissimilar societies.

As the narrator collects stories of various wall jumpers, he explores differences between the two halves of Germany. A simple news account will flare into an argument with a friend formerly from East Germany about how the two states drive the reporting. A demonstration becomes fodder to explore the machinations of the elites. Reflecting on a relationship he had with another former East German reveals the deep rifts that have developed between the two German societies as a result of the political division. And a final trip into East Germany to visit that branch of the family that resides there shows how easily he could've been either. "You're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view" has rarely been more clearly demonstrated than here.

There are a couple of quotes that I want to take from this book

• "...the state was powerless before the tiled stove." (pg. 41)
• "I only know that we will fail in our attempt to cure the madness of one state by referring to the madness of the other." (pg. 126)

The first is a powerful reminder that, as sweeping as the political winds may be, the people continue to live as they mostly have. The second crystallizes what may be Schneider's thesis and is a truth that should remain in mind when talking about American politics. To often, people try to justify A's behavior by using B's behavior and vice versa, but the truth is that neither justifies the other, both behaviors are corrupting.