The Passport in Around the World

Apr 13, 2013 Nick rated it it was ok

Werner Herzog titled his movie about the life of Kaspar Hauser “Every Man Against Himself and God Against All’. That title might also fit Herta Muller’s vision of Communist Romania. This novel takes place in a small town among the German minority during the Ceausescu dictatorship, with a man willing to sacrifice everything, even his family, for the passport of the title. It is not so great a sacrifice as it might seem at first, since he does not seem to like his wife and daughter particularly. I ...more

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Dec 20, 2024 Rusalka rated it it was ok

Shelves: central-eastern-europe, magic-realism, around-the-world, translation, own, europe

I read The Appointment in 2012 and have been desperate to get back to Müller's work since. The Passport focuses on one family, their day to day, but also the extreme lengths that they will go to in order to obtain a passport to take them from Soviet Romania to Germany.

This is very much a magic realism vibe book. I feel like not knowing the ethnic group of people in Romania at that time and in that place, disadvantaged me at times to know what was realism and what was magic realism.

The hypocrisy ...more

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Jul 27, 2012 Sadiq. PhD rated it it was ok

The Passport portrays the stifling hopelessness of Ceausescu's regime in Romania as experienced by village miller Windisch, an ethnic German Miller who wants to escape life in Romania and so applies for a passport to freedom and the glittering temptations of the West.
Windisch is busy bribing the local officials with bags of flour to get a passport to emigrate with his family. Ultimately flour isn't enough and he has to offer his daughter....
When I started reading one short, declarative sentence ...more

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