Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Where Were You Robert by Hans Magnus Enzensberger Where Were You, Robert? by Hans Magnus Enzensberger (1998) T his is a time travel book by one of Germany's most well-known authors. He is a poet and novelist, writing primarily for adults. I first 'discovered' Enzensberger, the poet, when I was a young teenager at secondary school, and consequently was delighted when Where Were You, Robert? popped up in the shops. A new work, newly translated. It isn't at all what I was expecting. It's a rather strange book. Essentially, Robert, a lonely, only child, quite suddenly begins to drift through time. By fixing on a picture - film, painting or photograph - he is transported to the place itself. His first adventure takes him to a ghastly life in Siberia in 1956. In some time travel stories the traveler can control his departure and arrival quite accurately, but in this story, Robert doesn't understand how he comes to be in Siberia and settles down into a dreary, poverty-stricken life there. He thinks he is marooned, out of his own time and place. He is taken in by Olga, a Russian pharmacy attendant and stays in her impoverished flat with communal kitchen. Robert has a series of seven adventures in outlandish, rather unreal places and time zones, always drifting backwards in time. He spends many months in each place, resigned to the fact that he cannot escape. Some themes run through the whole book. For instance, the collection of junky bits and pieces which Robert carries with him in his jacket pocket from time zone to time zone, both benefit him in his travels and incriminate him. Gradually, he loses them all along the way, leaving his twentieth-century junk scattered through time like derelict satellites orbiting the earth. But he does manage to bring one thing back with him from 1621, when he finally returns to his own kitchen, a couple of years after his journey began. Where has Robert been? Well, he must have been somewhere because he brings back the paintbrush, to prove it. So it wasn't all just a bad dream. How long has he been away for? Robert thinks he was away for a couple of years, but does that mean he must be sixteen when he comes home again, or can he return home to the exact moment when he left? And even if he does manage to return home to the exact moment, won't he be a sixteen-year-old trapped inside a fourteen-year-old's body? Working as an apprentice in a Dutch artist's studio in Amsterdam in 1621, Robert finally finds a way to transport himself home. He paints himself back into it: Bravo! He returns home to the very moment when he left, two years ago. But, strangely, one thing is missing from the kitchen. One thing which he forgot to paint back into his picture when he transported himself back home. His mother's red glove, which she left on the counter when she went out earlier, has disappeared for ever: I must say, I don't really understand that. The red glove must be somewhere. Which kitchen is reality now? The one which Robert painted himself back into, or the one which he left behind? Aren't they the same? As I said, it's a strange, uncomfortable book. I never felt that Robert was a real person. His reaction to his extraordinary adventures seems intolerably passive. And the adventures which he has, although they are bizarre, follow an essentially boring formula. Three adventures would have been quite enough for me. See what you think. What can I read next? If you are an older reader and you enjoy time travel stories you might like to look at this one by Alan Garner: If you just enjoy strange stories, you could look at this new one by Susan Price: Where Were You, Robert? by Hans Magnus Enzensberger (1998) T his is a time travel book by one of Germany's most well-known authors. He is a poet and novelist, writing primarily for adults. I first 'discovered' Enzensberger, the poet, when I was a young teenager at secondary school, and consequently was delighted when Where Were You, Robert? popped up in the shops. A new work, newly translated. It isn't at all what I was expecting. It's a rather strange book. Essentially, Robert, a lonely, only child, quite suddenly begins to drift through time. By fixing on a picture - film, painting or photograph - he is transported to the place itself. His first adventure takes him to a ghastly life in Siberia in 1956. In some time travel stories the traveler can control his departure and arrival quite accurately, but in this story, Robert doesn't understand how he comes to be in Siberia and settles down into a dreary, poverty-stricken life there. He thinks he is marooned, out of his own time and place. He is taken in by Olga, a Russian pharmacy attendant and stays in her impoverished flat with communal kitchen. Robert has a series of seven adventures in outlandish, rather unreal places and time zones, always drifting backwards in time. He spends many months in each place, resigned to the fact that he cannot escape. Some themes run through the whole book. For instance, the collection of junky bits and pieces which Robert carries with him in his jacket pocket from time zone to time zone, both benefit him in his travels and incriminate him. Gradually, he loses them all along the way, leaving his twentieth-century junk scattered through time like derelict satellites orbiting the earth. But he does manage to bring one thing back with him from 1621, when he finally returns to his own kitchen, a couple of years after his journey began. Where has Robert been? Well, he must have been somewhere because he brings back the paintbrush, to prove it. So it wasn't all just a bad dream. How long has he been away for? Robert thinks he was away for a couple of years, but does that mean he must be sixteen when he comes home again, or can he return home to the exact moment when he left? And even if he does manage to return home to the exact moment, won't he be a sixteen-year-old trapped inside a fourteen-year-old's body? Working as an apprentice in a Dutch artist's studio in Amsterdam in 1621, Robert finally finds a way to transport himself home. He paints himself back into it: Bravo! He returns home to the very moment when he left, two years ago. But, strangely, one thing is missing from the kitchen. One thing which he forgot to paint back into his picture when he transported himself back home. His mother's red glove, which she left on the counter when she went out earlier, has disappeared for ever: I must say, I don't really understand that. The red glove must be somewhere. Which kitchen is reality now? The one which Robert painted himself back into, or the one which he left behind? Aren't they the same? As I said, it's a strange, uncomfortable book. I never felt that Robert was a real person. His reaction to his extraordinary adventures seems intolerably passive. And the adventures which he has, although they are bizarre, follow an essentially boring formula. Three adventures would have been quite enough for me. See what you think. What can I read next? If you are an older reader and you enjoy time travel stories you might like to look at this one by Alan Garner: If you just enjoy strange stories, you could look at this new one by Susan Price: Hans Magnus Enzensberger. Hans Magnus Enzensberger (born 11 November 1929 in Kaufbeuren), is a German author, poet, translator, and editor. He has also written under the pseudonym Andreas Thalmayr . He lives in Munich. Contents. Enzensberger studied literature and philosophy at the universities of Erlangen, Freiburg and Hamburg, and at the Sorbonne in Paris, receiving his doctorate in 1955 for a thesis about Clemens Brentano's poetry. Until 1957 he worked as a radio editor in Stuttgart. He participated in several gatherings of Group 47. Between 1965 and 1975 he edited the magazine "Kursbuch". Since 1985 he has been the editor of the prestigious book series Die Andere Bibliothek , published in Frankfurt, and now containing almost 250 titles. Enzensberger is the founder of the monthly TransAtlantik . His own work has been translated into more than 40 languages. Enzensberger is the older brother of the author Christian Enzensberger. Enzensberger has a sarcastic, ironic tone in many of his poems. For example, the poem "Middle Class Blues" consists of various typicalities of middle class life, with the phrase "we can't complain" repeated several times, and concludes with "what are we waiting for?". Many of his poems also feature themes of civil unrest over economic and class based issues (it is perhaps appropriate to mention that he lived in Fidel Castro's Cuba for several years). Though primarily a poet and essayist, he also makes excursions into theater, film, opera, radio drama, reportage, translation, and has written novels and several books for children and is co-author of a book for German as a Foreign Language (Die Suche) . Australian writer Rhoderick Gates identified Enzensberger as a leading West German alongside Rudolf Bahro as "one of the few left-wing dissidents to predict the slow disintegration of the USSR."( Trials From The Past , Global Echo , Feb.