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Schadenfreude, A Love Story
Schadenfreude, A Love Story: Me, the Germans, and 20 Years of Attempted Transformations, Unfortunate Miscommunications, and Humiliating Situations That Only They Have Words For | Rebecca Schuman
17 posts | 6 read | 1 reading | 15 to read
"This book is a wild and wonderful ride. Your guide, Rebecca Schuman, is a super-smart and very funny person who writes brilliantly about Germany and Germans (who are not what you think) and being young and insane and life in general and... just read it, OK?" -Dave Barry You know that feeling you get watching a pompous jerk whine into his cell as hes booted out of a restaurant? When the elevator doors slide shut just before your sadistic boss can step in beside you? Theres a word for this mix of malice and joy, and the Germans (of course) invented it. Its Schadenfreude, deriving pleasure from others misfortune, and with Slate columnist Rebecca Schuman, the Teutons have a stern, self-satisfied blast at her expense. Rebecca is just your average chronically misunderstood 90s teenager, with a passion for Pearl Jam and Ethan Hawke circa Reality Bites, until two men walk into her high school Civics class: Dylan Gellner, with deep brown eyes and an even deeper soul, and Franz Kafka, hitching a ride in Dylans backpack. These two men are the axe to the frozen sea that is Rebeccas spirit, and what flows forth is a passion for all things German (even though, as everyone is quick to remind her, Kafka wasnt German at all). Dreamy Dylan might leave the second he gets accepted to a better college than Rebecca does, but Kafka is forever, and in pursuit of this elusive love she will spend two decades stuttering and stumbling through broken German sentences, trying to win over a people who dont want to be bothered. At once a snapshot of a young woman finding herself, and a country slowly starting to stitch itself back together after nearly a century of war (both hot and cold), Schadenfreude, A Love Story is an exhilarating, hilarious, and yes, maybe even heartfelt memoir proving that sometimes the truest loves play hard to get.
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DGRachel
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Bailedbailed

#GrumpyRachel officially bails on another book this month. When am I going to learn that memoirs do not work for me? This starts with a college-aged author and while I expect that the book progresses beyond the ridiculous teenager-abroad tone, I don‘t care to stick around to reach that point. So far, it‘s both obnoxious and pretentious.

sprainedbrain Grumpy Rachel. 😂 4y
Hooked_on_books Some memoir I love, and others I don‘t like at all. For me, I really don‘t enjoy most childhood memoir. I just find something very mundane about childhood and there‘s a sameness to so many childhood memoirs. It is what it is. 🤷🏼‍♀️ 4y
62 likes2 comments
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DGRachel
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“Why was Gregor going on about his stupid job, I wondered, when the only appropriate reaction in this particular moment would be this and this exclusively: HOLT SHIT, I‘M A GIANT FUCKING BUG?” (The author discussing Kafka‘s The Metamorphosis)

🤣🤣🤣🤣

Lcsmcat Can‘t argue with that! 4y
50 likes1 comment
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swynn
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Pickpick

In high school Rebecca Schuman fell in love with a Kafka-reading Adonis. The boy didn't last, but the thing with Kafka turned into a long-term romance with German language, literature, and culture. Schuman's memoir tells snarky, self-deprecating stories about her experiences as a tourist, student, and scholar. As a Germanophile myself, I enjoyed it a lot.

swynn For those who haven't encountered the term: "Schadenfreude" is a German word for pleasure taken from someone else's misfortune. For those who have only seen it in print, "SHAH-den-froy-deh" is close enough. 7y
Eki As a german, I can never understand how you can live without the word Schadenfreude. 😄 7y
swynn Doesn't it come in handy? And it's been in limited use in English for some time. But I've also had the experience of using "Schadenfreude" in conversation only to get a puzzled look and the reply, "Is that like Fahrvergnuegen?" 7y
10 likes3 comments
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quietjenn
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Today was kind of a bust. I bet the Germans have a word for that.

EvieBee Haha!!! 7y
45 likes1 stack add1 comment
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drinkteareadbooks
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we meet again

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DGRachel
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75 likes2 stack adds
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Peddler410
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Okay, I'm not German nor did I study German in high school so I'm not surprised that I've never come across the word SCHADENFREUDE 🙂

Today, however, this word popped up not once but twice while I was browsing at Barnes & Nobel!

I first encountered it in Grammar Girl's 101 Words Every High School Graduate Needs to Know. 😳 I have a Master's Degree and don't know this word. Well, now I do!

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SuperPunkNinja
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Catching up on my posts with this weekend's #bookhaul. I actually won Schadenfreude. 🙂📚

Moray_Reads Schadenfreude sounds great! 8y
mrsa_d Reading GG for my book club! About halfway through. It's good, but I was easily distracted by a mystery. 8y
67 likes2 comments
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balletbookworm
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Pickpick

A really fun and unique memoir/travel memoir about Schuman's love (possibly hate at times) relationship with German and Germans, starting with her first exposure to Kafka via a boyfriend in high school (and yes, we all know Kafka wasn't an actual German). Schuman is approximately 2 years older than me, so we experienced the same Germany in the mid-1990s. And we had very different experiences, to say the least. She has some interesting stories.

balletbookworm Chaucer sez: Dis book haz no kittehs. Also it gives no pets and haz a roach on the cover. (edited) 8y
51 likes1 stack add1 comment
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BethFishReads
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I wish I could convey how crazy spring is in the book editing world. I'll read again one of these days. Anyway, two things attract me to this memoir: (1) the subtitle and (2) that it's from @flatironbooks

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balletbookworm
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Hahahahahahahahahaha.

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balletbookworm
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They were both in my bag when the aliens came for me - I guess I have variety? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ? #funfridayphoto

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balletbookworm
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Yep. It would have been way more fun if Samsa had embraced his buggy-ness

Aurora0044 😂 8y
Lacythebookworm I hadn't heard of this book! Love the sound of it! 😊 8y
27 likes1 stack add2 comments
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WanderingBookaneer
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LeahBergen I want Crosstalk. Did you get that one? I hope so! 👍🏼 8y
WanderingBookaneer @LeahBergen : No 😔 It didn't hook me as much as the others. 8y
94 likes1 stack add2 comments
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jessicaesquire
Pickpick

If you'd like a self-deprecating and hilarious personal essay of youthful exploits blown up to fill memoir size, this is exactly where you should go. Schuman writes for Slate and you can tell she's written about herself in the Internet a lot, there are zingers right and left. If you (like me) don't care much about Germany, don't worry, this book will still work for you. A fun and light read.

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jessicaesquire
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Witty and self-deprecating = 🗝️ 2 my ❤️

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jessicaesquire
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Book mail! Great cover, great title. Coming from @flatironbooks in February!

charl08 Love that title. 8y
Ysabet What a fantastic title! 8y
flatironbooks thanks for the shoutout! 8y
12 likes2 stack adds3 comments