of the Party line. Not only has this turned him into a bad teacher, concerned to shield his pupils from doubt and critical questioning, but it has also stifled his own personal development.

His actions are both a protest against a system whose highest virtue is conformity and also an attempt to discover his own identity. He is therefore firmly in that ever-lengthening line of East German literary characters from Christa Wolf's Christa T. onwards, who, while being fundamentally in sympathy with the GDR's Marxist basis, are deeply disturbed by some of its dehumanizing manifestations.

But Schlaflose Tage is no crusading tract. Its laconic style reflects the self-deflating unpretentiousness with which Simrock embarks on his new life-style, and the whole book is pervaded by the quiet irony and delightfully understated humour which are characteristic of its author.

Peter Graves, "Breaking Out," in The Times Literary Supplement (© Times Newspapers Ltd. (London) 1978; reproduced from The Times Literary Supplement by permission), No. 3994, October 20, 1978, p. 1237.

"Sleepless Days" evokes the daily grind of an authoritarian society: the psychic drabness of it all, the draining political rituals, the disenchantments. Compact and sturdy, it is a beautifully made fiction. Yet the realism of its portraiture and the composure of its form are sharply complicated by a tone of hovering anxiety, as if somewhere in the background lurked the ghost of Kafka. (p. 7)

It would be interesting to know whether Mr. Becker began this novel with a clearly worked-out idea or came to the idea only through the process of writing it…. Mr. Becker may … have made art into an avenue to knowledge, finding out what he is "like at the moment." In any case, his book tells us what it is like to live in the airless world of authoritarianism, the costs of obedience, the possibilities of resistance. (p. 46)

Irving Howe, "The Cost of Obedience," in The New York Times Book Review (© 1979 by The New York Times Company; reprinted by permission), September 16, 1979, pp. 7, 46.

[In Sleepless Days Simrock makes changes in his life that] could be part of the story of many an Englishman; the latter half of the novel, however, depicts suffering of a more particularly Eastern European nature. Antonia [Simrock's lover]—in an unexpected and therefore profoundly shocking scene—attempts an escape to the West, is discovered, tried and imprisoned. And back in his teaching post Simrock tries to convey to his pupils something of his own new found credo of honesty-to-self only to land himself in severe trouble with parents, colleagues and bureaucratic authority. But never does Becker's presentation of Simrock's difficulties decline into mere protest against the East German set-up. The human heart, the recurring image throughout the novel, is his subject….

The central character of the novel is more preoccupied with metaphysical and ethical matters than are the protagonists of most English novels…. [Sleepless Days] is a deeply impressive book, the work of an obvious master….

Paul Binding, "UnEnglish," in New Statesman (© 1979 The Statesman & Nation Publishing Co. Ltd.), Vol. 98, No. 2541, November 30, 1979, p. 865.∗

Some months ago, reviewing Arno Schmidt's The Egghead Republic, I asked rhetorically: which is the more bleakly unfunny, German humorous writing or German serious writing? Sleepless Days provides some evidence to suggest that it is the former. It is intensely, almost paralysingly, serious but includes a few deliberate jests. These are not, however, the reason why the work is funnier than The Egghead Republic since they, like the gags in Schmidt's book, are painfully laboured. No, it is the unconscious humour which occasionally disperses the pall of metaphysical gloom and provides the reader with a chuckle or two….

Jurek Becker's short novel is dedicated to exposing the dangers of dehumanisation but a critic can't help wondering if the style might not be more harmful than the message is benign. (p. 24)

Simrock's revolt [against his life-style] has been so meek as to make it impossible to credit him with a heroic role. Instead the reader remains merely depressed by the robot nature of the society that can just be discerned through the ponderous narrative. A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch by Solzhenitsyn worked because it was concrete. The reader could feel the cold and smell the sour odours of the camp. One span in the life of Simrock fails because it obscures behind a wall of idealism the life it pretends to depict. (p. 25)

Paul Ableman, "Sad Parable," in The Spectator (© 1979 by The Spectator; reprinted by permission of The Spectator), Vol. 243, No. 7900, December 8, 1979, pp. 24-5.∗

Sleepless Days is a pleasingly exact title for Jurek Becker's fine, grave, funny novel …: it catches precisely the hero's comical, incurable unease in a world run by 'those who looked upon happiness as something for which the time was not yet ripe.' It's a novel which, while describing an unsatisfactory, even ludicrous state of mind with brilliant particularity, firmly and quietly establishes its political attitude. So, Becker had to leave East Germany in order to publish the book: and it's that kind of decision to which his hero Simrock uncertainly advances….

The novel vacillates wittily between Simrock's dogged battles with mental lethargy, and his confused involuntary actions. There are superb comic scenes where he seems hardly to know what he's doing. But gradually, Simrock's comic uncertainty is seen to be a form of heroism…. The novel's admirable and precisely conveyed discovery is that heroism partakes of dubiousness, uncertainty, qualms: the buffoon-philosopher's resolutions must compromise themselves if they are to be true: 'To sum up: to endeavour to be sincere. Not just at times when sincerity is permitted, but always. Or almost always, or as often as possible. As often as one's strength allows.'

Hermione Lee, "A Flutter of Premonition," in The Observer (reprinted by permission of The Observer Limited), No. 9825, December 16, 1979, p. 39.∗