'Agnes' by Peter Stamm (Review)

Welcome to another month of German-language reading - November is here and that means that it's time for Lizzy and Caroline's German Literature Month event :)  It's the fourth edition, and once again I'll be dusting off some books from my shelves and brushing the cobwebs from the German-speaking part of my brain...

While I'm not sure I'll be able to get quite as much read this year as I have in the past, I'm still planning to get to a fair selection of books, and that all starts today.  Today's review looks at a new book for me, but it's one from a very familiar source, a writer that would be a great starting point for anyone interested in contemporary German-language writing :)

*****
Agnes was Swiss writer Peter Stamm's first novel(la), and it's an excellent introduction to his work, featuring many of the themes and stylistic quirks of his later books.  The story is set in Chicago and features a (nameless) middle-aged writer who has come to the US to work on a work of non-fiction about trains.  One day, while doing research in the Chicago Public Library, a young woman comes in and sits down across from him.  Her name, as he soon finds out, is Agnes.

Naturally, the two are destined to become involved, but the book starts off dramatically, leaving us in no doubt as to what will happen to the heroine of the piece:

"Agnes ist tot.  Eine Geschichte hat sie getötet.  Nichts ist mir von ihr geblieben als diese Geschichte."
p.9 (Fischer Verlag, 2013)

"Agnes is dead.  A story killed her.  Nothing of her has been left to me but this story." *** (My translation)

Now that's quite a start.  From there, we have just 153 pages to see how the two meet, fall in love and have things go horribly, horribly wrong.  Nine months and counting...

For anyone who has read his books before, Agnes is very typical of Stamm's work.  It's a fairly ordinary story with fairly ordinary people, but the beauty here is that he makes the ordinary seem unusual.  He's an expert at drawing characters who have fatal flaws, something the reader gradually recognises is actually 'normal' - these are real people.

The narrator of Agnes is a typical Stamm man, from his laconic manner to his emotional coldness.  He enjoys the anonymity of being a stranger in a big foreign city, avoiding making contact with people before meeting Agnes.  This extends to the places he feels at home - his high-rise, hermetically-sealed apartment and the coffee shop where he is just another passing customer (he wants to go where nobody knows his name...).

Agnes herself is not without a few issues.  Right from the first chapter, we sense her anxiety:

"Sie mochte die Wohnung nicht, nicht das haus, überhaupt die ganze Innenstadt nicht.  Am Anfang lachten wir darüber, dann sprach sie nicht mehr davon.  Aber ich merkte, dass die Angst noch immer da war, dass sie gewachsen und nun so groß war, dass Agnes nicht mehr darüber sprechen konnte.  Sie klammerte sich stattdessen immer enger an mich, je mehr sie sich fürchtete.  Ausgerechnet an mich." (p.12)

"She didn't like the apartment, nor the building, in fact the whole inner city.  Initially we laughed about it, then she stopped talking about it.  But I could tell that the fear was still there, that it had grown and was now so big that Agnes could no longer talk about it.  Instead, she clung to me, tighter and tighter, the more she was afraid.  To me, of all people." ***

As the story develops, so too does her anxiety, leaving her constantly on edge, unable to relax into the relationship.  She's especially afraid of death, just the idea of ceasing to live causing her many restless moments.  In several discussions (for example, on Stonehenge or about the narrator's books) she fixates about leaving something behind, making a lasting impression on the world before her time ends.

Perhaps the strangest thing about the couple's relationship is that there is a third corner to the triangle - and it's a literary one.  The narrator is a failed fiction writer, and he is persuaded by Agnes to write a story about her, an ongoing work which gradually turns into a distorted mirror of the relationship.  While the tale initially reflects the start of their time together, it eventually catches up and begins to predict the future; in fact, before too long, it actually starts to influence the relationship, becoming a major impediment to the couple's happiness.

More than being a record of dates and cosy nights in, the story is a symbol of the control the narrator tries to exert over the relationship.  The narrator is like other male protagonists in Stamm's work; while not a bad man, he's rather selfish and self-centred:

"Es ist schwer zu erklären, obwohl ich sie liebte, mit ihr glücklich gewesen war, hatte ich nur ohne sie das Gefühl, frei zu sein. Und Freiheit war mir immer wichtiger gewesen als Glück.  Vielleicht war es das, was meine Freundinnen Egoismus genannt hatten." (p.110)

"It's hard to explain, although I loved her, had been happy with her, it was only without her that I had a sense of freedom.  And freedom had always been more important to me than happiness.  Perhaps that is what my girlfriends had always meant when they talked of my egotism." ***

Having chased Agnes, he then has second thoughts, but the trouble is that he's playing with a fragile mind.  He's not so much evil as thoughtless - but the end result is the same...

It's a wonderful read, definitely a one-day book (it was over in three short sittings for me), written in Stamm's usual, elegant, sparse style.  He's a great writer for people who want to try to read in German, his work seemingly simple, yet subtly complex.  Again, like his other books, the story often provides a warmth which quickly cools down, leaving the reader slightly wrong-footed, wondering where it all went wrong.  A warning - Stamm's not really a man for happy endings.

The story is definitely a compelling one, though, despite the chill of its setting, starting and finishing upon the isolated 27th floor.  It's a detached portrait of a woman with issues, and a man who simply can't understand her, but the background is almost as important as the people.  The apartment, the library, the parks, the walks - all reflect and increase the mood of the lovers, warming up and then slowly cooling down again, the relationship struggling as the winter approaches.  It's all very apt in the end...

Agnes is another great read from Stamm, a book I really want to reread when I find the time, and luckily enough for those of you who aren't quite up to the task of trying the original, it's available in English, translated by Michael Hoffman - as is his new novel, All Days are Night, which Other Press are releasing right about now!  I've pre-ordered the German-language paperback original, Nacht ist der Tag, but I'll have to wait until December to get my hands on that one.

Once I've tried that, I'll have read all of his novels, but as he's also an accomplished short-story writer, there are still a few more of his books to try yet, and I'm sure I'll get to them all.  You see, having enjoyed all I've read so far, it seems I'm destined to be a Stamm completist - which means that I might be back this time next year with a review of another of his books :)

'Beauty on Earth' by Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz (Review)

Today, I'm introducing yet another small press to the blog, another of those wonderful publishers who focus on fiction in translation.  Onesuch Press started out a couple of years ago, specialising in revitalising old, forgotten classics, or minor works by great writers.  The book I received for review is by a writer I hadn't heard of before, Swiss author Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz.  The main theme of the novel is a very familiar one though - beauty...

*****
Beauty on Earth (new translation by Michelle Bailat-Jones) begins with a letter, one in which Milliquet, a Swiss café owner, learns of a rather unusual bequest.  His brother, who emigrated to Cuba, has recently died, and along with a few hundred dollars he wishes his brother to take possession of the niece.  While the dollars never eventuate, Juliette does, and her arrival is a catalyst for all kinds of events in the sleepy town.

The reason for the uproar is that the quiet Juliette, as well as being an outsider, is beautiful, strikingly so, and her appearance casts a spell on the men of the village from their very first sight of her:

"All of a sudden we stopped laughing.  We grew timid.  This was when she raised her head.  If we had started to say something, we grew quiet.  And now they no longer dared look her in the face, because it felt then like a long knitting needle entering your heart."
p.25 (Onesuch Press, 2013)

Unable to avoid the attentions of the café patrons, she escapes to live with Rouge, an elderly fisherman, in his house down by the lake.  However, if she thought this was the end of her troubles, she was sorely mistaken, for the men of the village simply can't bring themselves to leave her in peace...

It's a fascinating story, both familiar and unpredictable.  Juliette, transported from Cuba and dropped onto the shores of Lake Geneva, is an exotic element, and in such a small, traditional location, she can do nothing but disturb the status quo.  In truth, she is anything but a heart-breaker, being rather withdrawn and shy.  Initially, she locks herself in her room and prefers dark, unflashy clothing, and it must be said that her beauty is never explicitly stated - it is simply assumed from the locals' behaviour.

Nevertheless, the men are driven wild.  The customers at the café only want to be served by her, turning away Miliquet and his helpers when they dare to approach, carafe in hand.  The mayor's son, Maurice Busset, simply abandons his fiancée once he's caught sight of Juliette, just one of the hordes of men desperate to snatch her away from Rouge, jealous of his possession.  Rouge himself, while more grandfatherly in his attentions, eventually becomes possessive and protective, taking to arms to protect his charge (or perhaps his interest in her).

Juliette, however, has no interest in the men; she just wants to live life in peace and enjoy herself.  She loves the lake and fishing as it reminds her of home, and several people share the thought that:

"Oh, she is exactly where she should be!" (p.101)

Rouge helps replace her father (Uncle Milliquet was only interested in the money and the increased trade her looks brought...), and her love for music is catered for by another outsider, a hunchback with an accordion.  They're all happy for a while, but with the male blood pressure rising, it's unlikely to last...

Beauty on Earth is a beautiful(!) book containing some fascinating writing.  The translator's brief foreword explains certain peculiarities of style, many of which I had already picked up on.  Ramuz enjoys using an unusual jumble of tenses (past and present) and chooses a mix of direct action and the comments of those narrating.  In fact, it is the identification of the narrator which is most interesting, as Ramuz switches from you to we to they with alarming frequency.  If you add to that a penchant for short sentences, idiosyncratic punctuation and some casual repetition, it's no wonder that it took me a while to adjust - but I did, and I enjoyed it :)

Part of the attraction of the book is also the description of the environment.  The action takes place in wonderful surroundings, and the book is full of descriptions of the lake, the trees and the hills.  The beauty of the title is apparent not just in Juliette, but also in the place she finds herself:

"He had seen that at this moment the mountains were touched on their side by the sun dipping down, at the same time the light turned less white; there was a color like honey between the walls of rock.  Lower down, on the slope of the fields, it was like powdered gold; above the woods, like warm cinders.  Everything was making itself beautiful, everything was making itself more than beautiful, like a rivalry.  All these things making themselves more beautiful, always more beautiful, the water, the mountain, the sky, all that is liquid, all that is solid, all that is neither solid nor liquid, but it all holds together; it was like an agreement, a continual exchange from one thing to another thing, and between everything that exists.  And around her, and because of her - what he is thinking and telling himself up there.  There is a place for beauty..." (p.95)

Perhaps in such an idyllic spot, the beauty Juliette brings is simply too much for one village to bear...

Beauty on Earth is a book which is probably very little read in English (despite an earlier translation), but it's a wonderful way to spend a few hours.  It has all the elements of a standard tragedy, but it's fairly unique in the way it unfolds.  It's also unusual in that its centrepiece is probably the least developed character in the novel.  Juliette is less a person than an idea, the symbol of beauty, and her story shows that beauty is not always such a good thing.  As Valerie Trueblood says in her introduction, it can be a form of natural disaster - as well as bringing joy, it can cause great destruction...

*****
P.S. While I was writing this review, I stumbled across a short piece by the translator over at Necessary Fiction, in which she discusses the issues of translating Beauty on Earth and her own connection to the landscape - well worth checking out :)

'Wir Fliegen' ('We're Flying') by Peter Stamm (Review)

One of my favourite contemporary German-Language writers is Swiss author Peter Stamm.  I've enjoyed three of his novels so far, but Stamm doesn't just write long books - he's also adept at the shorter form and has published four collections to date.  With not many of his novels left to try then, I thought it was high time I tried Stamm's shorter work to see how it compares to the longer books - and when better than during German Literature Month? :)

*****
Wir Fliegen (We're Flying)*** is a 2008 collection consisting of twelve stories, the majority coming in at somewhere around twelve pages.  The style and language is unmistakably Stamm, with his clipped, simple language and the slightly uncomfortable feeling he evokes in his creations.  However, the smaller canvas he works on in his stories means that matters come to a head a lot more quickly.

If there's a connecting theme here, it's one of frustration.  'Die Verletzung' ('The Hurt') is a story of summer love, with the boy returning years later to the village, only to be disappointed that the girl has become a woman who wants no part of him.  In 'Männer und Knaben' ('Men and Boys'), a night-time visit to a swimming pool also brings back memories of a youthful romance, albeit one which never quite happened:

"Lukas konnte sich nicht vorstellen, worüber sie sprachen, er konnte sich nicht erinnern, worüber Franziska die ganze Zeit mit ihm gesprochen hatte.  Irgendwann würde sie nichts mehr zu erzählen wissen.  Vielleicht war das der Moment, in dem man sich küsste.  Bevor man sich küsste, musste man still sein."
'Männer und Knaben', p.113 (Fischer Verlag, 2009)

"Lukas couldn't imagine what they had talked about, he couldn't remember what Franziska had talked to him about the whole time.  At some point, she must have run out of things to say.  Perhaps that was the moment in which you were supposed to kiss.  Before you kissed, you had to be silent." (My translation)

Regrets - he has a few...

Several stories also look at the distance which exists between two people, a gap which can never quite be bridged.  The first story, 'Die Erwartung' ('Expectations'), looks at a relationship between two neighbours, one which somehow never manages to get off the ground.  There's something not quite right about the man, and the interaction between the couple is stilted (and slightly creepy...).  In 'Fremdkörper' ('A Foreign Body'), this sense of unease is heightened when a cave explorer spends an unusual evening with a couple he's just met.  Even in a moment of intimacy, Stamm uses the subjunctive, indirect speech to create a sense of distance.

"Das mache nichts, sagte sie.  Das könne jedem passieren."
('Fremdkörper', p.33)

"She said that it didn't matter. That it could happen to anyone."

It's a structure that's more common in German than English, but I always feel that Stamm uses it deliberately to create a wall between the reader and the narrator - and the narrator and the people they are interacting with.

Stamm also explores the effect of traumatic events from the past on the present.  'Videocity' is a short piece which shows how a video shop owner has been crushed by the loss of his mother at an early age, and in 'Der Brief' ('The Letter') a widow finds out about her dead husband's infidelities and wonders how she should react to the discovery.  Perhaps the most disturbing of these stories though is 'Drei Schwestern' ('Three Sisters'), in which a housewife with a passion for art is bored, trapped at home with her son.  It is only when we travel back into her past that we realise why we should sympathise - and how many people have conspired to bring her to her current state...

Of course, there's always room, and time, to turn your life around, and two of the better stories look at this idea of a tipping point.  In 'Der Befund' ('The Result'), a man waits for his biopsy results, using the time alone working the night shift at a hotel to work out what he wants from life.  The title story, 'Wir Fliegen' ('We're Flying'), also follows this thought, with a childcare worker forced to care for a child after hours seeing her partner through new eyes - and it's not a pretty picture.

There's not a lot of hope and joy in the collection, but there is a kind of light at the end of the tunnel.  The penultimate story, 'Kinder Gottes' ('Children of God')  involves a priest in a small town somewhere (anywhere) in Central Europe.  When a young woman falls pregnant, claiming never to have had sex, the town initially scoffs.  However, the priest, an outsider, begins to wonder...  Could this really be an immaculate conception - the second coming in his parish?  The story has all the signs of an impending disaster, but it actually provides a happy ending for the collection as a whole.  People want to believe, and it really could happen...

Overall, I found Wir Fliegen enjoyable, and there's definitely enough there to make me come back for another look at Stamm's shorter writing.  Despite the piles of books mounting in my study, I feel another (virtual) trip to The Book Depository coming on...

*****
An English-language version, We're Flying (translated by Michael Hoffman), is available from Granta Books (UK)/ Other Press (US)

'An einem Tag wie diesem' ('On a Day Like This') by Peter Stamm (Review)

Recently, I've been neglecting my German-language reading, so I decided it was time to take a break from my review copies and library Spanish-language literature education, and pick up a book from my shelves.  It's by a writer whose work I've enjoyed before - and it's a nice, easy read too...

*****
Peter Stamm's An einem Tag wie diesem (On a Day Like This) is the story of Andreas, a Swiss forty-something teaching German in Paris.  He's lived in France for almost twenty years, and his life is in a rut.  He's never been married, has lived in the same, small apartment for a decade and meets two regular girlfriends for no-strings attached sex on a regular basis.

Events, however, conspire to shake up his routine life in a way he couldn't have expected.  A graded reader he is considering for his class, about a holiday romance, reminds him of his encounter with Fabienne, a French au-pair, back in his home village.  Then a visit to the doctor to investigate a nasty cough leads him to face up to the fact that he's not getting any younger.  Throw in an encounter with Delphine, a young trainee teacher, and Andreas' world is in a bit of a spin.  It's time for him to take a trip into his past...

As I've mentioned before, Stamm's style is deceptively simple, and I'm sure that the (kitschy) graded reader is a bit of a nod to this:

"Die Geschichte war unglaubwürdig und schlecht geschrieben, aber sie hatte verblüffende Parallelen zu Andreas' Geschichte.  Auch er war Fabienne nachgereist, allerdings erst nach zwei jahren.  Sie hatten sich während der ganzen Zeit geschrieben.  Andreas hatte den Kuss am Weiher nie erwähnt, aber seine Briefe waren voller Andeutungen gewesen.  Fabienne musste gemerkt haben, was er für sie empfand."
p.29 (Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 2011)

"The story was unbelievable and badly written, but there were startling parallels to Andreas' story.  He had also followed Fabienne, albeit two years later.  They had written to each other the whole time.  Andreas had never brought up the kiss by the pond, but his letters were full of hints about it.  Fabienne must have noticed what he felt for her." ***

At this stage of the story, the unwary reader might be tempted to say that Stamm's book is little better than the one Andreas is flicking through.  The Swiss writer's simple style always has a sting in the tail though; the story unfolds slowly and carefully, becoming more complex as it progresses.

It's a tale of nostalgia, and a warning of the dangers of revisiting the past.  Andreas begins to obsess about his youth, recalling his brief encounter with Fabienne and his return home for his father's funeral.  Even an old postcard is enough to have him remembering the old days, an idealised image of what was - and what could have been.  Gradually, he decides that the reason for the standstill in his life is partly his feeling of having missed his chance for love with Fabienne.

His actions later in the book though are to prove that nostalgia isn't all it's cracked up to be - you can't cross the same river twice (although at one point, he does, literally, and there's nothing on the other side of the bridge...).  Which is not to say that this justifies the path he took instead, far from it.  It's obvious that Andreas' life needs an impetus, and one has just come along in the shape of Delphine.  Will he realise this though?

One thing Stamm excels at is writing real people, people you can imagine meeting and talking to, flawed people, not types.  Andreas, like other Stamm heroes, is, well, a bit of a prick at times:

     >>Du bist ein Schwein<<, sagte Nadja mit vollkommen kalter Stimme.
     >>Ich werde dich vermissen<<, sagte Andreas.  >>Man kann so schön allein sein mit dir.<<
     >>Du bist allein, egal mit wem du zusammen bist<<, sagte Nadja. (p.84)

"You're a pig", said Nadja in a cold voice.
"I'll miss you", said Andreas.  "You can really be alone with you."
"You're alone no matter who you're with", said Nadja.***

Every time we start to try to empathise with him, he does something selfish and stupid, whether it's abandoning girlfriends in the cruellest possible way, or flirting with his best friend's wife after the two of them have just had a fight.  He treats women coldly and uses people when it suits him, and this effective characterisation, despite the simple language and plot, constantly throws the reader off balance.

I keep coming back to this idea of simple language simply because it is, well, simple.  Anyone wanting to read something literary in German would be well advised to try Stamm as a starting point.  He uses very spare prose, but the clear language somehow veils deeper ideas.  One linguistic feature I noted was an interesting use of the subjunctive for indirect speech (rather than using direct speech) at times.  It has the effect of distancing the reader (and often Andreas) from the other characters, enhancing the feeling of solitude Andreas already brings with him...

On a Day Like This is a great story of revisiting the past in order to get your future moving, and one I'm sure most people would enjoy.  I have a couple more from Stamm to come - I already had Wir Fliegen (We're Flying), a collection of short stories, on my shelves, and on finishing this book, I immediately bought his first novel(lla), Agnes, too.  Stamm was nominated for the Mann Booker International Prize this year, and I'm sure he'll pop up on more short- and longlists in the future.  This is a writer you'll definitely hear more about - even if it's only on my blog :)

***All translations into English are my own sorry attempts :)

'Meer der Tusche' ('Sea of Ink') by Richard Weihe (Review)

Although I wasn't quite there at the beginning, I've been reading the European novellas offered by Peirene Press for a good while now, and there was only one which I hadn't managed to get to.  Why?  Well, I've tried to read the ones written in French and German in the original language, and one of the more recent publications was actually fairly tricky to find (on my limited budget, anyway...).  Luckily for me, Meike Ziervogel was kind enough to send me a spare copy she had, enabling me to complete my Peirene reading.  But did I actually like it?  Let's find out...

*****
Richard Weihe's Meer der Tusche (Sea of Ink, Peirene version translated by Jamie Bulloch) is a summary of the life of famous 17th-century Chinese artist and calligrapher, Bada Shanren.  He is born into the royal line as Zhu Da, a prince destined for a life of regal duties and pleasant distractions; that is, until the ruling dynasty is overthrown by the Manchus, forcing him to flee for the mountains.

Seeking refuge in a monastery, he learns about art and life, and decides to devote his days to religion and painting.  After initially being taught by the head of the temple he sought refuge at, Bada Shanren moves on, becoming the spiritual leader of his own temple, and a renowned artist in his own right.  Later in life, he is compelled to undergo exams for the ruling dynasty, and is admitted to the rank of 'Sea of Ink', the highest honour for an artist under the regime.  However, this is not enough for a man like Bada Shanren - he wants nothing less than to create the perfect painting...

Sea of Ink runs to little more than 100 pages, divided into 50 short chapters, and it follows the artist throughout his life, from birth to death (it definitely deserves the designation of small epic).  The start of the book concentrates on the historical events of the period, in particular the change of regime, a bloody, violent seizing of power.  Later though, historical events take a back seat, and it is the artist's gradual development which becomes the focus of the story.

Of course, the book is all about the art, and in addition to the story, Weihe includes ten beautiful ink drawings, examples of the artist's work, which are woven into the fabric of the novella.  In fact, they are an integral part of the story, the foundation upon which the writer builds his (partially-invented) story.  From Zhu Da's early days watching his father painting, through to his years as an acolyte, the artist (and the reader) learns more and more about the great skill involved in creating pictures using just one colour:

"Wenn du deinen Pinsel in die Tusche tauchst, dann tauchst du ihn in deine Seele.  Und wenn du den Pinsel lenkst, lenkt ihn dein Geist.  Ohne Tiefe und Sättigung fehlt deiner Tusche die Seele; ohne Lenkung und Lebendigkeit fehlt deinem Pinsel der Geist.  Das eine empfängt vom anderen.  Der Strich empfängt von der Tusche, die Tusche empfängt vom Handgelenk, und das Handgelenk von deinem lenkenden Geist.  Das heißt die Kraft der Tusche und des Pinsels meistern."
p.35 (Elster Verlag, 2011)

"When you dip your brush into the ink, you dip it into your soul.  And when you guide the brush, it is guided by your spirit.  Without depth and saturation, your ink will lack soul; without guidance and exuberance, your brush will lack spirit.  The one receives from the other.  The brush stroke receives from the ink, the ink receives from the wrist, and the wrist from your guiding spirit.  This is what it means to master the power of the ink and your brush."***

The monk stresses the importance of preparation, practice and patience.  In effect, the whole book (and Bada Shanren's whole life) is leading up to his attempt to paint something unpaintable - water.

While Sea of Ink is a story of the artist's life, it is also a tale of the paintings themselves.  Weihe describes how inspiration arrived for each of the pictures, and how Bada Shanren actually created them.  Weihe's art historian background shines through as he announces each brush stroke, carefully guiding the reader through the process from picking up the brush to the final signature seal.  The pictures really are quite impressive - I particularly like the two spiders ;)

A perfect little novella, then?  Not quite...  One aspect of the novel which grated a little was the description of the actual painting.  Perhaps for someone who didn't get placed carefully in a corner with a box of crayons during school art classes, Weihe's painstaking descriptions of the painting process may have been more interesting.  For me, without an artistic bone in my body, it did get a little old.  Around the fifth or sixth time he picked up his brush and began carefully preparing the ink, my eyes did start to glaze over a little, and I tended to skip over the actual description of the brush strokes.  I suspect that this says a lot more about me than about Sea of Ink...

Still, it is an excellent novella, and a great introduction to an interesting character.  If you're at all interested in art, you'll get a lot out of this - including, perhaps, the secret to the perfect painting:

"Enthält denn der erste Strich nicht schon die ganze Zeichnung?  Er muss lange vorbedacht werden, vielleicht ein Leben lang, um ihn dann, im richtigen Moment, in einer einzigen flüssigen Geste zu Papier zu bringen, ohne einer Korrektur mehr bedürftig und fähig zu sein." (p.107)

"And doesn't the first stroke contain the whole picture?  It must be considered at length, perhaps throughout your whole life, so that then, in the right moment, you can commit it to paper in a single, fluid motion, with neither the need nor possibility of improvement."***

It's all about that first stroke - or should that be sentence ;)

*** The English translations are, as usual, my sorry efforts, and not those of the real translator :)

*****
That's it then - I'm all up to date.  I've read all ten Peirene books published to date, most of them twice.  Or have I...

...you see, of the ten I've read, only four have been actual Peirene books.  The other six have all been the original versions, books recommended by the nymph but not actually a part of the real Peirene stable.  In fact you could call them, Peirene choices, not Peirene books.

Is there a difference?  Well, that's a story for another day ;)

Tracks in the Snow

Today's book is by Swiss writer Peter Stamm, who some of you may know from his novel Sieben Jahre (Seven Years).  However, the bus won't be heading to Switzerland on today's trip; instead, we're off to the frozen north.  Make sure you're wearing your thermals...

*****
Ungefähre Landschaft (Unformed Landscape) takes the reader to a small village in the north of Norway, where we meet Kathrine, a customs officer who inspects Russian fishing vessels to check for contraband vodka.  She has lived in the village for most of her life, and (as we are later to discover) has never been south of the Arctic Circle.  Divorced with a child, she drifts along in a happy but monotonous existence, until she meets Thomas - who decides that she is the woman for him.

In less than a year, the two of them are married, and Kathrine's new husband, an intense, single-minded man, begins to form his new life the way he wants it, shaping Kathrine in his own image as he does so.  She goes along with things for a while, but on discovering that her new marriage is all based on lies, she decides to leave, finally getting out of the small village which has been her whole world for so long.

Stamm's novel is about a woman who has been sleep-walking her way through life, burning through two marriages, and bringing up a child, without ever really being aware of what she has been doing.  Her travels in the south (although pretty much anywhere is south when you start off in Norway...) serve as a kind of wake-up call, and a voyage of discovery for a fairly naive young woman.  As she catches train after train, heading through Europe by day and by night, she sees different places and meets new people, even though none of it really makes an impression at first.  By the end of the story though, her experiences have given her the strength she needs to make a new life for herself.

There are several similarities with Sieben Jahre, not the least of which is the simple, almost colourless prose.  Stamm's style is deliberately slight and pared-back, simple sentences following one after another, falling into place like snowflakes onto the page.  The thing with snowflakes though is that enough of them together can turn into a suffocating layer of snow, and the first twenty or thirty pages give the feeling of Kathrine being being slowly suffocated by the minutiae of dull, everyday life.

Another similarity with Sieben Jahre is the idea of a character with an unswerving obsession.  In that book, it is Iwona, the Polish student, who sets her sights on the hero and simply won't let go.  In Ungefähre Landschaft, this role is played by Thomas, a man who is trying to change the world around him to suit his desires, carefully removing any signs of Kathrine's individuality.  He even attempts to alter reality, twisting facts to show himself in a better light - and Kathrine struggles to do anything about it...

The reason for this is that Kathrine, despite being in her late-twenties, has yet to really mature because she hasn't experienced life.  When Thomas bursts onto the scene:

"Sein Leben war ein Strich durch die ungefähre Landschaft ihres Lebens."
p.31 (Fischer Verlag, 2011)

"His life was a line through the unformed landscape of her life."
(my translation)

By the end of the novel, thanks to her journey out of her comfort zone, Kathrine finally finds the strength to stand on her own two feet and decide what it is she wants from life.  Nothing earth-shattering happens, but that's not the point.  Ungefähre Landschaft is a modern Bildungsroman for a woman who learns that there's more to life than an unhappy marriage in a Norwegian fishing town...

Seven Years in Munich

When I first started my blog, most of the little German-language literature I read was confined to classics, owing both to a lack of opportunity (pre-Book-Depository days...) and a lack of knowledge about contemporary German-language writing.  Over the past couple of years though, I have gradually built up a small library of books, and a surprising number are fairly contemporary, recommended either by small presses (e.g. Peirene Press) or fellow bloggers (e.g. Caroline and Lizzy, organisers of last November's German Literature Month).

One name which has continued to crop up is Peter Stamm, and when several reviews of his book Seven Years (Sieben Jahre in the original) appeared recently, I thought it was time to give this one a go.  It's an interesting book, fairly easy to read (I raced through my copy in two days), but deceptively simple with a lingering aftertaste.  In fact, it's a story which certainly stays in your head for a while after you finish it...

We begin the book with an image of Sonja, a beautiful middle-aged woman standing inside an art gallery in Munich.  The reader is with her husband Alex, the narrator of the book, outside looking in, alongside his daughter Sophie.  From this seemingly perfect beginning, the writer, through a story Alex tells to a family friend, shatters our illusions, telling us what life is really like for the couple.

To understand this, we have to go back to 1989 when Alex is about to complete his degree in architecture.  At the time, he is good friends with Sonja, but nothing more, and on a summer's day he is enjoying a beer with a couple of friends and flirting with some girls at a nearby table.  On a whim, one of his friends invites another girl to come and join them; a shy, quiet, dowdy-looking creature.  This is Iwona, a Polish student, and this seemingly innocuous meeting is to have a lasting, and devastating, effect on the lives of many of the characters.

The key to Sieben Jahre is the incomprehensible, unavoidable compulsion Alex has to be with Iwona, despite not really liking her at all.  After finally getting together with Sonja, he manages to extract himself from the quasi-hypnotic spell the Polish woman has cast upon him, but after the titular seven years (an apt time span for the religious Iwona), when she contacts him for financial assistance, he falls under her spell again, with catastrophic results.

Stamm makes it clear from the start that there is nothing about Iwona which should attract someone like Alex.  She is taciturn, socially awkward and incapable of talking on any subject except the movie she last watched on television, and despite certain physical attributes which are foregrounded in the text, she doesn't appear to actually impress Alex with her appearance either.  However, in her presence, Alex feels the one thing he perhaps misses from his seemingly perfect partner - a devotion and a desire to please that is literally an obsession...

If Alex doesn't sound like a very nice man at all, you're probably right.  He's a selfish, brooding, self-centred husband, jealous of his wife's talents and unconvinced of the merits of fidelity.  However, at times Sonja seems no better.  The more the reader learns about her, the less convinced we are that she actually loves Alex at all.  I had a strong impression that she merely needed a good-looking, relatively intelligent partner to share her concerns and give her a child - who that person was, and what they thought about it all seemed relatively unimportant...

When you then widen the focus to examine the other characters in Sieben Jahre, it quickly becomes clear that this is not a phenomenon confined to the unhappy couple.  The beauty, if that is the correct word, of the novel is that none of the characters are that sympathetic.  Rather than tutting disapprovingly and sending our good wishes in the direction of one character or other, we are forced to look more closely at the relationships and decide whether they are actually worth all the trouble.  Everyone is to blame for what happens (some, admittedly, more than others), but nobody comes out of it with an unblemished character.

So what is Stamm actually saying with all this angst and misbehaviour?  One conclusion you could draw is that happy marriages are merely myths, stories that shatter into fragments when scrutinised in the harsh light of day.  Another is that happiness has little to do with monetary and social success - the reader is left with a sneaking suspicion that the happiest of the characters is Iwona, despite the misfortunes she has to put up with.

What he really means is anyone's guess though, even though the language he uses to lay out his ideas is sparse, simple and easily comprehensible for a non-native reader like me.  There's a lot more to the story than  you would think - a case of the sum of the parts exceeding the total of the individual elements.  For me, at least, there's definitely enough there to justify another look at Peter Stamm's work at some point...

Please don't miss the Swiss!

Climb on board!  After a few days in Austria and Germany, it's time for the German Literature Month Tour Bus to trundle over the mountains again for a brief trip around Switzerland.  The Swiss can be the overlooked cousins of the G-Lit family - certainly, my reading experiences reflect that -, so I thought it was time to see what they have to offer.  Today's treats?  A couple of tasty nineteenth-century novellas for you all to get your teeth into - onward, driver!

*****
The first of today's two stories is Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's Der Schuß von der Kanzel (The Shot from the Pulpit), an entertaining and amusing novella set in a small Swiss town.  Pfannenstiel, a young man with clerical ambitions, pays a visit to General Wertmüller, a returning local hero with dubious morals and a mischievous sense of adventure.  Pfannenstiel is hoping for a preferment overseas, mainly to escape from an unsuccessful romance, but the General, always with an eye for the comical and ludicrous, has other plans for our young friend...

This is a short tale, eleven chapters spanning about thirty-five pages, but it's highly entertaining.  In some ways, it feels more like a play, with clearly defined changes of scenery, an impressive (and humorous) turning point and a neat resolution pleasing all and sundry.  The  characters are surprisingly well drawn for such a short text: the devilish General; his cousin, the shooting parson; Pfannenstiel, the pessimistic young lover, and his intended, the feisty Rahel.  There's more than a touch of Trollope about proceedings - and I mean that in the best possible way ;)

The first half of the novella is suggestive of Gothic literature, with the tense nocturnal discussions between Pfannenstiel and the General, and the spooky lodgings the young cleric is led to for the night, but once the sun has risen (as should be the case), things look very different, and the wry humour takes over.  I don't want to say anything more about the plot, but the title is there for a reason - and a very good one it is too!  Meyer shoots and definitely hits the mark :)

*****
Today's second offering, Die schwarze Spinne by Jeremias Gotthelf, reverses the progression of Meyer's novella in some ways.  It starts peacefully enough, following a group of farming folk in a small Swiss village as they get ready for a Christening.  Once the child has been baptised (not without one minor hiccough), the guests head back to the farmhouse for plenty of food and lashings of drink.

In between courses, some of the men decide to stretch their legs, and when they sit down under a tree to rest, the grandfather of the house begins to tell the guests a story - one which will remain in the memory far longer than the food...  You see, the misleading first ten pages or so form the first part of a frame narrative, and the grandfather's story, suggested by the Christening and the mention of an old piece of wood used in the new house, is the real start of the story (and an amazing one it is).

A few hundred years earlier, a group of farmers are set an impossible task by the knight who owns the village.  Desperate, and at their wits' ends, they are offered help by a mysterious stranger, but at a certain price - the gift of an unbaptised child...  From here, events turn eerier and darker, and when the villagers attempt to cheat the stranger, it soon becomes clear that this was someone they should not have messed with.  Winds howl, storms thunder over the valley, and the pregnant women start to get extremely nervous.  And when you have trouble with the devil, who are you going to call?  A clue - it's not the Ghostbusters...

Die schwarze Spinne is a stunning piece of short fiction, evolving from a commonplace piece of naturalist writing into a full-blown horror story, pitting good against evil and scattering the countryside with the corpses of the unjust and unfortunate alike.  The religious implications are fairly clear, but the story works on many other levels too.  The idea of collective guilt and the inability to speak up against the crowd, even when you know that what is being done is wrong, is an important one, as is the role of the outsider in bringing disaster to an otherwise harmonious community.  There may also be overtones of the 'Black Death' plagues which afflicted Europe in the dark ages, represented by the black curse which sweeps over the valley.

If you want good writing with a high body count, look no further.  The further the story progresses, the higher the death toll, and it is genuinely gripping reading.  Then the story returns to the present day, and the guests (in a slightly more sombre mood) return to the table; just when we could be forgiven for thinking that the worst is over, the grandfather takes the story up again, leading the reader through another round of death and chaos...

And the spider?  Well, I'd got about half-way through the story when I began to wonder where this black spider (Black Widow?) had got to - and then it began to appear (and I chose those words deliberately)...  I'll say no more (you'll enjoy the book more that way!), but remember this: if you start looking under your bed for spiders after reading Die schwarze Spinne, don't say I didn't warn you...

All You Good, Good People (Listen to me...)

Are you all well rested and ready for another trot around central Europe?  Today, we'll be heading over the Alps to visit some friends over the border.  I hope you had a big breakfast - this promises to be a long ride...

*****
This time, we're off to Switzerland, to the possibly fictional town of Seldwyla, the setting of Gottfried Keller's cycle of novellas, Die Leute von Seldwyla (The People of Seldwyla).  In the introduction to the first half of this collection, the writer describes the small town and its fascinating inhabitants, a collection of lazy, cunning, work-shy speculators who enjoy nothing better than the entertainment of other people's misfortune.  Many contemporary readers (and critics) claimed to know the true identity of Keller's literary backdrop; whether real or invented however, the town is merely the background to the stories Keller wishes to tell.

Of the five stories in this part of the collection, by far the most famous is Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe (Romeo and Juliet in a Village), a shifting of Shakespeare's famous tragedy to a slightly-less glamorous Swiss setting. Sali and Vrenchen grow up as friendly neighbours until their fathers come to blows over a piece of land bordering both their farms.  The two families become sworn enemies, but this cannot stop the inevitable rekindling of the children's relationship after a chance meeting years later.  Unable to forge a happy life together because of social and familial constraints, the two innocent souls decide to have at least one happy day, one last walk in the sun before parting ways - sadly, despite temptation, that day cannot last for ever...

Apart from this beautifully-written tearjerker, the best of the collection is probably Die drei gerechte Kammacher (The Three Just Combmakers), a satirical look at how the well behaved struggle when surrounded by other upright citizens (and how they can be taken advantage of by the less well inclined...).  This story shocked some of Keller's readers with its cruel toying with the unfortunate German protagonists, who are reduced to rolling in the dirt in front of the roaring Seldwyler crowd.  They felt that the story portrayed the Seldwyler, and by extension the Swiss, in a rather poor light...

Frau Regel Amrain und ihr Jüngster (Mrs. Regel Amrain and her Youngest Son) is the tale of how Mrs. Amrain, an upright woman from a neighbouring town, tries to bring her son up wisely among the lazy ne'er-do-wells of Seldwyla, while Spiegel, das Kätzchen (Mirror, the little Cat) is an amusing fairytale-esque story in which a shady character bites off more than he can chew when making a Faustean deal with a poor little kitty cat.  This story is another example of the Germanic literary device (cf. Theodor Storm's Der Schimmelreiter) of setting the tale in the distant past in order to make use of supernatural elements which would seem out of place, and ludicrous, in a more contemporary setting.  

The four stories above are all entertaining, and I felt that only the first of the five novellas, Pankraz, der Schmoller (Pankraz, the Sulker), a story about a native of Seldwyla who goes into a big sulk (for a very long time...) was less than worth the effort.  In the story, the returned sulker relates his travels and adventures in the far east to his mother and sister, who promptly fall asleep.  I  almost joined them.  Luckily, I decided to press on through this story and was rewarded by the other four, much better tales :)

The eagle-eyed reader may have noticed above that I referred to the first half of the collection, and that is because there are actually ten stories in the whole Die Leute von Seldwyla cycle.  The five I read were published in 1856, and five further novellas appeared between 1860 and 1875, when the complete collection was published for the first time.  All of which means that I have another five waiting for me on my Kindle when the mood strikes me, including another of the all-time classic German novellas, Kleider machen Leute (Clothes make People or, perhaps, Clothes make the Man).

Ach, ist das Leben schön...

Review Post 18 - Bits and Bobs

I'm rather busy at the moment (things to do, people to see, you know how it is), so after finishing Cloud Atlas, I decided to take it easy and not plunge straight into another long book which might take me a long time to finish.

Instead, naturally, I went through three short ones in five days. I really should learn not to kid myself that I'm not going to read... Anyway, the books in this post, unlike those in some of my recent reviews, have very little in common, other than the fact that they live in my study, and I've been vaguely meaning to read them for a while. Enjoy ;)

*****

As you may have noticed, my preference is for long, involved novels, so short stories are not really my thing (I find them a little frustrating at times, to tell the truth). However, there is something more frustrating than a short story, and that's an unfinished short story - and that's where we'll start today. You may have read my first and second reviews of Katherine Mansfield's Collected Stories, and this week I finally managed to polish off the last parts of the monster, consisting of her last (posthumously) published collection, The Doves Nest and Other Stories, plus a bunch of fragments which remained incomplete at the time of her death.

Again, there were some lovely pieces; I particularly liked The Doll's House, a moving story involving Kezia and her family (the stars of a couple of earlier stories), and A Cup of Tea, an interesting tale of a random act of kindness between social classes. However, once through the few complete stories and into the fragments, I just lost it. I simply couldn't engage with four pages of build up towards a denouement which had never been written and never will. I'm sure academics specialising in Mansfield find these morsels fascinating; I was just glad to get them out of the way.

I know. It's my own fault. Short stories aren't meant to be devoured by the plateful, and I have behaved like a little boy at a wedding, stealing a plateful of fairy cakes and stuffing them all into my mouth as quickly as possible (before regurgitating them outside the toilets). There were some amazing stories in the collection, but there were also several weaker efforts, and the problem with reading them in such a large bundle is that they blur into one big mess after a while. I promise that the collection will be revisited at some point: one. book. at. a. time.

*****

When I was a teenager, Neverwhere, a short series written by Neil Gaiman, was shown on the BBC, but it was one of those things I never got around to watching. Even though I read Good Omens, Gaiman's collaboration with Terry Pratchett, I had somehow neglected to read any of his books until now (which is strange because: a) I've read plenty of Pratchett books in my time and b) I loved the concept behind Neverwhere). Finally, this week, I got around to reading the book behind the show, and pretty damn entertaining it was too.

The story follows Richard Mayhew, a young Scottish office worker living in London who, after a random act of kindness towards a woman he finds bleeding in the street, finds his world turned upside down. Ignored by the people around him, he finds his way into a world beneath the city he knows, a parallel, twisted version of the metropolis above. Welcome to London Below...

Richard finds himself involved in a quest to help Door (the woman whose aid he came to) find out who killed her family and is initially all at sea in a dark world of fantastic and sinister characters. Accompanied by the enigmatic Marquis de Carabas and the sultry bodyguard Hunter, Richard and Door traipse the byways of London Below, seeking help from some of its denizens and avoiding others. Mind the Gap indeed...

It's a marvellous read, reminiscent (naturally) of Pratchett but slightly more measured and less frantic (I often feel that a Discworld novel rushes you through it as if it has somewhere else to be, and you're holding it up). It does have the feel of an adaptation - a lot of 'scenes' and not as much characterisation or description as one might have hoped -, but it does have some interesting twists and turns which most readers will be fairly surprised by.

Of course, like many people, I was most amused by the twists on the city above. Richard encounters such people as the Black Friars, Old Bailey, the Angel Islington and Lady Serpentine (one of the Seven Sisters) and visits both the Earl's Court and (K)Night's Bridge. Believe me, after reading this book, you'll never look at a tube map the same way again.

The special edition I have is padded out with some book club questions (something I'm not really fond of) which allude to serious themes of reflecting the lost souls of the real London, but I doubt that the average reader is thinking much about social issues when Richard is trying to avoid having his liver cut out by a variety of underground ne'er-do-wells. This is an entertaining book, and that's how I read it. American Gods next? Don't mind if I do...

*****

Short stories, a novel and now a play; it certainly has been a varied week so far. Swiss author Friedrich Dürrenmatt is an old favourite of mine, and even though I'm not really one for drama, I'm happy to make an exception for him. Der Besuch der alten Dame (usually translated into English as The Visit) is a short play describing a visit by the titular lady, Claire Zachanassian, to her hometown of Güllen. Claire, through a series of well-judged marriages, has become fabulously wealthy while Güllen has gone the other way, so poor that the whole town has been mortgaged. When she decides to come back and visit, the town is counting on Alfred Ill, Claire's childhood sweetheart, to persuade her to restore its fortunes. It turns out that she is prepared to do so, but only at a price. She will give the town of Güllen one billion dollars on one condition: namely, on receipt of Alfred Ill's dead body...

You see, Claire's past is anything but happy, and Alfred's is anything but as flawless as people think. Woman, scorned, revenge, dish, cold, laugh, last longest... Cliches are wonderful, but this is no joke; when the richest woman in the world wants something, she is used to getting it. The Gülleners close ranks initially, the mayor declining her offer amid loud cheers from the citizens of Güllen, but Claire's ominous reply "Ich warte" ("I'll wait"), hints that this may not be the final answer, as much as the townspeople believe that they stand behind Ill.

The crux of the story is temptation, personified in the figure of the old, seemingly unkillable, Zachanassian. The artificial limbs fitted after numerous crashes and air disasters (of which she was always the only survivor) serve to make her seem more sinister and inhuman, a hideous goddess straight out of a Greek play. The townspeople, despite professing to support Ill, mysteriously begin to appear richer, buying new clothes, drinking more expensive beer, smoking more refined cigars - all on credit. It becomes clear that they are all speculating that someone may just take up Claire's offer, and Ill quickly begins to fear for his life. While denial is rife, the more responsible members of the community do let their facade crack at times: the priest begs Ill to flee; the teacher threatens to make the truth known to the outside world in a drunken rant; the mayor and the policeman visit Claire to beg her to change her mind. All to no avail.

It sounds very dark, but it's actually just as much of a farce as a tragedy. The stage directions are absurd, as is Dürrenmatt's wont, with actors pretending to be trees, and four chairs serving as a car. Claire is a monster and brings a bizarre court with her, including a couple of muscly ex-con stretcher bearers and two blind eunuchs who speak in unison (not to mention the three husbands she goes through whilst in Güllen, all to be played by the same actor).

When it comes to the crunch though, the writer knows how to pare away the comedic elements and leave a stark truth facing the protagonists: either Ill's body is placed in the coffin the old lady has brought with her, and taken away to buried in Capri, or he lives, Claire leaves, and Güllen rots in poverty. We all suspect we know the outcome, but it is still painful to watch. In another work, the writer talks of his Swiss countrymen as being "spared and not tempted", a response to Swiss moral superiority over the actions of Germans in World War II. Here, we see what it is to be tempted and hope fervently that it never happens to us.

52 - 'Das Versprechen' by Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Back in April, I read two slightly unusual detective novels by the Swiss writer Friedrich Dürrenmatt, one of my favourite discoveries from my German studies, but he actually wrote a third... OK, I think you're with me now.

The third detective novel is called 'Das Versprechen' ('The Promise') and takes place in post-war Zürich. In a story within a story, a famous writer on a book tour meets a retired police Captain who, not thinking much of the way his metier is portrayed in fiction, decides to educate the novellist in real police work. While driving the writer back to Zürich, the policeman relates a story about a former employee who tried to act like a character in a novel and instead found his whole existence crumbling around him.

The policeman's story centres on Lieutenant Matthäi and his insistence on continuing the search for a little girl's murderer, even after the main suspect, a travelling salesman with a prior conviction for sexual molestation, admitted to carrying out the attack, before hanging himself in his police cell. At first, his colleagues refuse to believe that a mistake has been made; however, through the use of ever-so-slightly unethical tactics, Matthäi manages to lure the real murderer into his carefully-laid trap. And that's where real life starts to have an influence...

Matthäi's inhuman persistence in the face of wide-spread scepticism hangs on the promise he made to the mother of the murdered Gritli Moser. Unable to ignore the doubts he harbours about the confession of a convenient scapegoat, Matthäi forces himself to continue the hunt for the real murderer, despite the effect the chase is having on his life. In the end, a prediction made by a psychologist he consults about the case comes chillingly true; unable to find the murderer, he only finds madness.

As mentioned above, Matthäi was actually on the money, and the real murderer is tempted to stalk the cute eight-year old girl that Matthäi uses for bait (told you it was unethical...), so where does it all go so wrong? As in Dürrenmatt's earlier novels, it is luck, or rather misfortune, that provides the twist in the tail. While little Annemarie sits waiting for her fateful encounter with a child molester (and half the Zürich police hide in the bushes), the potential murderer has already met his fate. At the end of the book, we learn that he died in a car crash on the way to the secene of the crime... After a week of stake-outs, the police lose patience and leave Matthäi to his fate; for the poor unfortunate genius, this consists of drinking, smoking and waiting for a murderer who will never appear.

For such a short book with a fair amount of action, the writer is able to build the tension to unbearable levels, with the reader feeling the urgency of Matthäi and his captain as they lie in wait for the murderer. Annemarie sits and waits, the policemen hide and watch, Annemarie sings the same song over and over again, nobody comes, Annemarie plays with her doll... for days the policemen watch and wait until, finally, one of them cracks; then, the remaining detectives begin to shout and scream at the poor girl, demanding she tell them all she knows. Under the unbearable pressure of the wait, the girl's protectors become the ones she needs protection from.

This tension is also evident in the final part of the book when Frau Schrott, an old lady on her death bed, summons the captain to tell him something important before her death. Through her meandering nothings about her family and her various marriages, she stretches the story (and the captain's nerves) to breaking point, leaving the reader breathless in her slow, measured progression to the part about the murderer. Only when she reveals the truth about her husband, the murderer, and the events leading up to his death, does the reader finally learn that Matthäi was both right and terribly, terribly wrong.

It is Matthäi's character which reinforces the effects of his investigation. Unable to adapt to unforeseen events, he continues in the path he has taken, which should, logically speaking, lead him to his goal. However, life has a funny way of meddling with even the best-laid plans; while fictional detectives usually get their man in the end, in real life luck can intervene to stop you achieving your goals, no matter how well you have prepared.

At the end of the novel, there are some very poignant lessons to be learned from Matthäi's downfall. Firstly, expect the unexpected. Life cannot be micro-planned; something will always get in the way of your best intentions. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, be very careful with what you say. Never, ever, make a promise that you may not be able to keep. Who knows what may happen to you if you can't keep your word...

29 & 30 - 'Der Richter Und Sein Henker' & 'Der Verdacht' by Friedrich Dürrenmatt

A long, long time ago, back when I was doing my A-Levels, I was first introduced to the work of the Swiss writer Friedrich Dürrenmatt, in the form of his classic detective novel, 'Der Richter und Sein Henker'. The title can be translated as the judge and his executioner (literally, hangman) and the book tells the story of a policeman from Bern, Kommisär Bärlach, who uses events to his advantage to finally bring a career criminal to justice. A couple of years later, while I was what is laughingly described as 'studying' at university, I took a unit on Dürrenmatt and read the sequel to the original tale, 'Der Verdacht' ('The Suspicion), where the now-retired Bärlach takes on another evil-doer, an action which almost costs him what is left of his life.

I read a few detective novels when I was a teenager (and I still like a bit of Inspector Morse!), but, on the whole, I find them a little simplistic, even when the plot is well thought out. The difference with these two stories is the way the solving of the suspected crime becomes unimportant compared to the sub-plots and interplay between the characters. Dürrenmatt uses his works to discuss the role of good and bad in the world and how far good men can, and should, go to prevent evil from gaining the upper hand.

The two titles are chosen quite deliberately; throughout the two books there are several judges and executioners, none of them appointed by the law of the land. In 'Der Richter und Sein Henker', Bärlach and his subordinate, Tschanz, are assigned to solve the murder of another policeman, Schmied (who was secretly working for Bärlach to gather evidence against Gastmann, a career criminal who continually crossed paths with the old inspector). Again and again, the investigation comes across obstacles preventing access to the suspected perpetrator until Tschanz finally confronts, and kills, Gastmann and his sidekicks. Only then do we find out that Tschanz was Schmied's real killer and that Bärlach used this knowledge to increase the pressure on Tschanz to push the blame onto Gastmann. The old inspector has judged the inveterate criminal and sent his executioner to carry out the sentence.

In 'Der Verdacht', however, a chance sighting of a picture of a Nazi war criminal operating without anaesthetic in a concentration camp leads Bärlach to investigate a high-class Swiss surgeon. Only too late he discovers that his suspicion is actually the truth; worse, the surgeon knows that Bärlach is onto him and is not inclined to allow the frail old man out of his hospital alive...

Both criminals, Gastmann and the surgeon, Emmenberger, are portrayed as rich, successful, intelligent men who commit crimes for the sake of it. Gastmann is just as capable of murder as he is of paying the taxes of an entire town. Emmenberger, who tortured hundreds of prisoners in concentration camps by operating without anaesthetic, but with the consent of his victims, rejoices in his freedom from the normal rules of society, believing himself to be living the only kind of life possible, one where you are free to make whatever decisions you want (even if that involves torturing and killing people).

Both behave with full knowledge of what the results may be, and, in his own way, so does Bärlach. Dürrenmatt insists on the importance of taking responsibility for your actions, even if they do not always turn out as planned. In the first book, the old inspector, while seeming to be unable to match Gastmann in their battle of wits, is eventually the victor, able to use events to his advantage and 'convict' the criminal for a crime he did not commit. However, in the sequel, the tables are turned, and it is Bärlach who is out-thought and out-manoeuvered. As a result, he causes the death of an innocent man who was enlisted to help him put pressure on Emmenberger. This is something the policeman must take full responsibility for.

From the discussion of the events in 'Der Verdacht', it is probably clear that these events take place shortly after the end of the Second World War, and the role of Switzerland itself in this period is implicitly handled, especially in the second novel. While we condemn the criminal behaviour of the two villains and are appalled at the horrors of the concentration camps, Bärlach questions the self-rightiousness of the Swiss, stressing that they were "verschont, nicht versucht" (spared, not tempted). Gastmann and Emmenberger were tempted by life unrestricted by society and became criminals. In the same way, Tschanz, passed over again and again for promotion, jealous of the better-educated Schmied and of his beautiful partner (and car!), is tempted to get rid of his superior in order to slip into his role. Lead us, indeed, not into temptation...

However evil or good, cunning or impulsive, plans are never perfect in this world; luck can always prevent your intentions from being realised. The publication of Emmenberger's photograph in a magazine, Schmied's untimely death, Tschanz... Nothing is certain, and we must always rely on a little luck to cover up our crimes, or uncover those of others. It is no coincidence that the key character in the first book is called Tschanz (pronunciation? Chance.). A coincidence brought Gastmann and Bärlach together near the start of their lives, and luck helped the criminal commit a murder in front of the policeman's eyes without his being able to act. In the end, it is fortune that helps to complete the circle.

Quite a lot for around 250 pages, but then, Dürrenmatt is a very special writer. The difference between these dectective stories with a moral and the usual plot-driven pulp fiction is that knowing the outcome doesn't lessen the effect of the novel. Even (almost) twenty years on, the books still have the same pull, and I know I'll read them again and again. And that is the hallmark of good writing.