I feel like I've been reading this in real time. These are generally good essays with a lot of things I have to stop and think about.There were many moments I lost the thread through references I didn't know and often am not compelled to seek out. In the more Berlin-focused pieces, there are plenty of moments marked with flags that I will have reason to come back to, but also some that I felt too disconnected from. I came away with the impression this is someone I would've enjoyed running into in a cafe. ( )

I ended up skimming the second half of the book. The writing was gorgeous, the sentences fluid, thoughtful, Nooteboom's thought processes complex yet still crystal clear. I remember looking him up in Amsterdam; it's obvious why he's famous there -- he writes as a normal person who can give readers an all-encompassing view into insightful, beautifully-crafted observations. Especially in this book, where he constantly presents himself as a foreigner visiting Berlin and other German cities during a most historically remarkable time, he almost casts himself as an intruder.

I picked it up randomly at the library, and the beginning did draw me in; the time period, the location, the effervescing social scene and people's fears and hopes and the way they were conveyed in conversations that Nooteboom had and overheard were all exciting to read about. But then it started to drag on. Especially when he went into the third person in one essay, it became unbearable -- almost metaphysical in a way, without the riveting dynamism of the earlier parts. That's when I started skimming.

The last few essays -- written recently -- were especially relevant to today's economic and political environment in Europe. ( )

This book is something of a curious mixture, as it was written over a period of more than 20 years, but the whole is rather brilliant, and Nooteboom's perspective seems especially persuasive when read in the chaos of Brexit Britain.

The first part of the book is a sort of diary of a year Nooteboom spent living in Berlin, which turned out to be a particularly momentous one because in started in 1989 and included the fall of the Berlin wall and the first steps towards German reunification. Nooteboom's position as a wise Dutch outsider who is old enough to remember the Germans invading his country, and also as an erudite historian and art expert, makes this a particularly vivid and moving account.

The remainder of the book collects various later writings about Germany. I was particularly interested in the last one, written in 2012, focusing on Germany's difficult position in relation to the European financial crisis of the time - I enjoyed reading his caricatures of the British perspective. One of his thoughts was that whenever one writes about contemporary historical events, the present can always change ones conclusions, so there is never a right time to do it. Perhaps this accounts for the fluid nature of this book, which has been added to several times since the first part was published in 1990. ( )

I have to admit I skipped through this. It would probably benefit from a slower, closer reading but I wasn't tempted to slow down as I raced on. The style is that Mr Nooteboom notes down what he sees and what he thinks. In a literary, allusory way that could be attractive. For someone who was in Berlin at the fall of the wall the book fails to contain any reported speech. No conversations with anyone. It is an internal tour of Mr Nootebooms mind not of the city which he visited. ( )

Interesting if somewhat long winded and self referential book on Berlin and the Wall in 1989. If it hadn't been for my own recent trip to Germany and the week I spent in Berlin, it would not have been as interesting, but I had gone and I found his observations acute. Excellent on what it felt like to be present in history, less good in the later essays when he simply quotes himself ad nauseam. ( )