Uwe Johnson has an assured place in the history of modern German literature as the novelist of divided Germany. When Mutmassungen über Jakob (Speculations about Jacob) appeared in 1959, commentators were quick to appreciate that Johnson's was the first serious treatment of a strangely neglected theme, and Das dritte Buch über Achim (The Third Book about Achim) of 1961 confirmed Johnson's position as the writer of the two Germanies. All such comments are true enough, but need qualifying, for, as the reader soon notices, Johnson's theme is not so much the two German states themselves, as the fact of their separation. In other words, he does not compare the two systems nor does he discuss or evaluate their differences, but rather points insistently to the gap separating them. It is, he claims, an unbridgable gap. (pp. 19-20)

It is plainly not Johnson's aim in his novels to promote discussion, to...