Uwe Johnson has an assured place in the history of modern German literature as the novelist of divided Germany. When Mutmassungen über Jakob (Speculations about Jacob) appeared in 1959, commentators were quick to appreciate that Johnson's was the first serious treatment of a strangely neglected theme, and Das dritte Buch über Achim (The Third Book about Achim) of 1961 confirmed Johnson's position as the writer of the two Germanies. All such comments are true enough, but need qualifying, for, as the reader soon notices, Johnson's theme is not so much the two German states themselves, as the fact of their separation. In other words, he does not compare the two systems nor does he discuss or evaluate their differences, but rather points insistently to the gap separating them. It is, he claims, an unbridgable gap. (pp. 19-20)

It is plainly not Johnson's aim in his novels to promote discussion, to present an issue or attack abuses. Rather he is interested in the clash of opposites that denies the possibility of reconciliation or compromise. In other words, his approach to the German question, as reflected in his novels, can fairly be described as anti-liberal…. (p. 20)

The theme of separation runs constantly through all the novels. In the first novel, Jakob, however, this separation is but one aspect of a prevailing lack of comprehension that separates man from man and makes truth inaccessible. Human motives are shrouded in fog, and the novel demonstrates this fact in its structure, for it proceeds by a series of conjectures and suppositions, so that it is often uncertain whose thoughts or words are being recorded. All the minor conjectures that go to make up the novel are finally gathered into the conjecture as to the ultimate cause of Jakob's death, when crossing the railroad tracks in a fog. The death may well be a case of suicide, motivated by Jakob's secret despair at his position, torn between East and West, but this is deliberately left uncertain.

The subsequent novels are far more vehement in pointing to the gap separating the two Germanies and far less inclined to stress the isolation of the individual. In Achim the separation is no longer shrouded in fog, but concretely represented in a central symbol, the inability of the Western journalist, Karsch, to write the biography of the East German bicycle racer, Achim. The separation is here quite plainly a matter of opposing ideologies. Achim's achievements as an athlete increase the prestige of the East German state, and any book about him must support this overriding purpose. An East German official, Herr Fleisg, explains to Karsch what his book must be about—the construction of a new economy, and a new contentment in life, and the spectators waving flags at the edge of the racetrack.

Herr Fleisg's views of the function of literature are never discussed, but the reader is still, so to speak, invited to comment…. In Zwei Ansichten (Two Views) of 1965, East and West never meet but are handled in alternating chapters concerning a man, B, from the West and a woman, D, from the East. The principle of separation is embodied in the very structure of the novel, so that even the possibility of discussion between the parties is removed.

Yet even the first novel, Jakob, for all its undogmatic speculativeness, is far from taking a liberal, detached view of the two Germanies. It is misleading to assume that Johnson is taking some independent stance, attacking tyranny impartially in the tradition of the Western man of letters. Johnson is not an heir to this tradition, although commentators on Jacob are sometimes inclined to believe that he is. Johnson shows the readers where his preferences lie by showing the allegiance of Jacob, the wholly admirable hero, to the East German cause. (pp. 20-1)

In Johnson's novel the liberal cause has no … robust representative. On the contrary, with a conspicuous absence of liberal fairplay, the liberal opposition is characterized by the feebleness of its representative, Jonas Blach, who is unable even to muster enough decisiveness to move to the West. (p. 22)

With such a creature, enfeebled by consciousness of thoughtcrime, there can be no question of discussion…. Johnson's novel … presents such an anti-liberal, Marxist front that one critic was able to compare it with novels of the "social realist" school, in which there is a popular hero and a weak and wavering intellectual. Yet the whole is overshadowed by a question-mark, and veiled in the mists of speculative uncertainty. Is the hero as fully in accord with the regime as he appears to be on the surface, or is his death a case of suicide based on despair? The pervasive doubts give Johnson's first published novel an air of undogmatic liberalism.

The next novel, Das dritte Buch über Achim, shows a distinct movement away from this suggestion of liberalism. (pp. 22-3)

Even though nobody in Achim speaks up for the West, Karsch's helpless neutrality invites the reader to discuss and argue on his behalf. In the story "Eine Reise wegwohin 1960", Karsch ceases to be neutral and turns neurotic and querulous. Moreover, the story describes, as the novel does not, Karsch's return to the West, and this develops into an attack on the West. (p. 23)

Johnson seems to combine rejection of the West with a keen interest in the American scene, evinced in his latest novel Jahrestage, which has an American setting. This combination of rejection and interest is strongly widespread among German intellectuals of Johnson's and younger generations. (p. 25)