Der Deutsche Sommer by Arnab Chakraborthy

The basic flaw in the book is that it plays with the inherent spirit of a travelogue. When you pick up a book in this genre, you expect to see a country through the eyes of the writer – his/her own experiences, observations and yearnings. Instead dozens of pages and pages describing German history – about Hitler and his whole life, his contribution towards the World war 2, his ultimate demise; all this is inserted into the book. Not only this, history about soccer, world cups, visit to London and Amsterdam and their history completely sap your energy. If i am looking to know such details about these people or places, i will buy a history book and NOT a travelogue – or worse, i will just use Wikipedia to know the details, for free mind you. All these detailsinterspersed within the narrative is exhausting and the book falls into an incoherent mess. It requires patience to appreciate the portions of actual travelogue, once the author reaches Germany.

There is a huge build-up for the visit to the red-light area in Amsterdam. There are sexist jokes, females are looked and scorned with lusty eyes all through the narrative and lewd remarks are thought off each time a species with two breasts come in the vicinity. All this would have still worked if there was a proper closure when the group of friends reach the area to satisfy the carnal pleasures. But those particular scenes are shoddily written and are touched upon at a superficial level. To say the least, it is too much of a foreplay in the writing with very little reward in the end.

I am going with 2/5 for Arnab Chakraborthy’s German travelogue, Der Deutsche Sommer. It is well researched and gives you glimpses about the European lifestyle. But in the end, it is neither a history book nor a travelogue. It is one of those books where editor slept his/her way through or may be was not paid at all. Just arm yourself with tons of patience before you decide to read this one.

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