Seiler paradoxically sets his reworking of the Robinson Crusoe story on the popular Baltic holiday island of Hiddensee, to the west of Rügen, crowded in the summer of 1989 with holidaymakers, seasonal hotel and restaurant workers, people hoping to leave the DDR illegally via the tantalisingly short sea-crossing to the Danish island of Møn, and heavily-armed border-guards.

Literature student Ed, his Friday-character, arrives on the island after the death of his girlfriend provokes a kind of nervous breakdown. He finds a job washing-up in the kitchen of the Klausner restaurant in the north of the island (a real place that is still in business; Seiler worked there himself in 1989). And he soon forms a kind of spiritual bond with his colleague Alexander Krusowitsch — "Kruso" — the acknowledged leader of the seasonal workers on the island and organiser of their clandestine assistance to the "shipwrecked mariners", the growing body of people who have come to the island because they have in one way or another been swept overboard from the sinking East German state.

The result is a fascinating and quite unique kind of book, part darkly-realistic behind-the-scenes accounts of restaurant work, part dream-laden allegorical account of liberation and redemption against the background of the collapsing state, part tribute to the many brave people who died or ended up in prison as a result of attempting to leave the DDR. The Robinson Crusoe parallel works much better than you might expect. And I was left with an urge to go and see Hiddensee for myself... ( )

Actual rating 3.5 stars.

https://lizzysiddal.wordpress.com/2017/11/09/kruso-lutz-seiler/ ( )

This debut novel by the German lyricist Lutz Seiler was awarded the prestigious Deutsche Buchpreis in 2014. Its protagonist, Edgar Bendler, like the author, is from Gera in Thuringia, in what was then the German Democratic Republic (DDR). Like the author, he takes time off from his university studies to go to Hiddensee, a small island, rich in lore from ancient sagas, located in the far northwest of the country, so far that the Danish island of Møn can be seen (tauntingly) in clear weather. Edgar’s journey has the nature of a flight, an inner emigration. When he arrives, he finds work as seasonal help in the Klausner, an inn (it exists in real life, the author worked there in the fateful summer of 1989) located on the site of an old monastery. There he falls under the influence of the title character, a strong, mystically-inclined child of a Russian general whose lifework is to save the lost, shipwrecked and stranded. Edgar fancies himself Friday to this Robinson Crusoe.
If I had rated this book halfway through, I would have given it three stars (a good book); my admiration grew though as I continued to the end. In the first half, there is little in the way of plot, and even what little there is is often hard to follow because of the author’s elliptical style. Perhaps the key to this poetic prose is Ed’s thought while listening to Kruso: “ Im Kern war alles Haltung, nicht mehr und nicht weniger, eine komplizierte Form der Existenz, zugleich die einzig mögliche” (loc 2896 in the Kindle edition). In retrospect, this half is like a languid, dreamy summer idyll, yet in it important themes such as freedom, loss, commitment and truth are introduced. About 60 percent of the way into the book, a crucial turning point occurs. At the time, it feels like a climax, one wonders if it doesn’t come too early. It does not, as the repercussions of this event are dramatically played out in the rest of the book, as the dissolution of the crew of the insular inn mirrors the breakdown of the DDR.
The book is told in the third person, but consistently from Ed’s point of view, though it is (purposely, I feel) often hard to tell if what is reported are occurrences, dreams, or hallucinations. This switches to the first person in an elegiac epilogue, as the tale is brought to the present.
This coming-of-age, buddy story is rich in literary allusions, not only to Daniel Defoe, but many others, especially Georg Trakl and, toward the end, Novalis, as well as many Biblical references. Is Kruso a Christ-figure? I’m not sure; at very least he is a holy fool. And Edgar sees himself as Job, cast overboard, yet spewed up onto the shore of a strange land with a tale to tell.
I would recommend this to anyone with the patience to stay with a tale that takes a while to unfold, a good grasp of the German language (even then, keep a dictionary close to hand - the book is full of seldom-used yet very concrete words, the kind that poets love and use to great effect), and a desire to gain a unique view of life in the DDR. A very good read. ( )

Als seine Freundin verunglückt und er in ein tiefes Loch zu stürzen droht, beschließt Edgar Bendler, nach Hiddensee zu fliehen – auf jene legendenumwobene Insel, die schon vielen Gestrandeten als Zuflucht diente. Er wird Abwäscher im Klausner, einer Kneipe hoch über dem Meer, und lernt Alexander Krusowitsch kennen – Kruso. Eine schwierige, zärtliche Freundschaft beginnt. Von Kruso, dem Meister und Inselpaten, wird Ed eingeweiht in die Rituale der Saisonarbeiter und die Gesetze ihrer Nächte. Nach und nach erschließen sich ihm die Geheimnisse der Insel und des Klausners. Als Ed schon glaubt, wieder einen Platz im Leben gefunden zu haben, erschüttert der Herbst 89 das fragile Gefüge der Inselbewohner. Am Ende steht ein Kampf auf Leben und Tod – und ein Versprechen.

Inselabenteuer und Geschichte einer außergewöhnlichen Freundschaft – Lutz Seilers preisgekrönter Roman schlägt einen Bogen vom Sommer 89 bis in die Gegenwart. Die einzigartige Recherche, die diesem Buch zugrunde liegt, folgt den Spuren jener Menschen, die bei ihrer Flucht über die Ostsee verschollen sind, und führt uns dabei bis nach Kopenhagen, in die Katakomben der dänischen Staatspolizei. ( )

Ist man schon frei, wenn man sich frei fühlt?
Ein sprachgewaltiges Buch über den „Sehnsuchtsort der Freiheit“, die Insel Hiddensee im Jahr 1989 und über die Freundschaft zwischen dem Germanistikstudenten Edgar Bendler und Alexander Krusowitsch, genannt Kruso. Vom Aufbau her geht dieser anspruchsvolle Roman was den Protagonisten Edgar betrifft, teilweise in Richtung Entwicklungsroman.
Für dieses Buch sollte man sich Zeit nehmen, denn die realistisch-poetische Sprache fordert den Leser spätestens auf Seite 65 mit einem Satz, der über neun Zeilen geht, aber dennoch Anfang, Ende und Inhalt hat. Auch die manchmal surreale Handlung, gefüllt mit intertextuellen Bezügen und Verweisen, macht das Buch zu keinem einfachen Lesestoff, von anderen Lesern durchaus unterschiedlich aufgenommen.
Mich hat der Autor sprachlich in seinen Bann gezogen, ein Stern Abzug für die teilweise überbordernde Metaphorik, die es manchmal schwer macht, in der Handlung zu bleiben. Ein Buch, das in jedem Satz die volle Konzentration des Lesers verlangt. ( )