Johnson's use of documentary material and style fulfils an important function in the structural organization of [Das dritte Buch über Achim and] a correct understanding of this leads to a deeper enjoyment and better appreciation of the controlling aesthetic, the unifying formal principle of the whole work. (p. 240)

[In this novel] a fictional narrator from the Federal German Republic tries to describe the difficulties encountered in the German Democratic Republic by a fellow-countryman, Karsch, in his attempt to write the official biography of Achim, a current sporting hero and member of parliament in the GDR. Both the narrator, as we see in the first three pages of the book, and Karsch have consciously to resist and examine critically the standard ideological prejudices and linguistic clichés of both East and West in their search for the truth. The very structure of the novel creates this problem and is...