Today I've posted another appetiser on the January in Japan blog, a post I published a while back on translation and Japanese literature - please click here to see it :)
If you're interested in the whole event, please sign up by commenting on any post, and also follow the new blog - there's lots coming up!
Next week, I'll be posting the first in my J-Lit Giants series, brief introductions to Japanese writers with suggestions for starter books. Number one next Wednesday will be Natsume Soseki, and I also have a post on Yukio Mishima (and possibly a guest post on Osamu Dazai) ready to go.
If you would be interested in contributing to that series, please let me know - whether you would like to talk about the Murakamis, Natsuo Kirino, Yasunari Kawabata, Kenzaburo Oe or Hiromi Kawakami, I'd love to publish your thoughts and advice!
So, in short:
- Have a look at the translation post
- Follow the January in Japan blog
- Get ready for J-Lit Giants
- Let me know if you want to contribute
See you next Wednesday :)
While I had a very detailed plan for German Literature Month, I am always open to suggestions, so when I received another unrequested surprise package from Maclehose Press, I was happy to take the bus on a detour. Dutch novelist Cees Nooteboom is also a well-regarded travel writer, and his latest offering in English is very relevant to our November travels. Looks like we're off on another trip to the capital...
*****
Roads to Berlin (translated from the Dutch by Laura Watkinson) is an updated version of a book Nooteboom wrote over twenty years ago. Back in 1989, the writer received a government grant to spend a year or so in (West) Berlin while he was writing a book about Germany. In what turned out to be excellent timing, his stay in the country (during which he wrote columns about his experiences) turned out to coincicide with one of the pivotal events of modern history - the fall of the Berlin Wall.
We read it as the writer experiences it, a series of philosophical musings, dated at the end of each section, leading up to the day in November when he returns to Berlin from a reading tour to find the city in uproar. The borders are opening, people are streaming across from the East and the wall itself is about to be turned into one of the longest dance floors the world has ever seen. Unknowingly, Nooteboom has been writing a countdown to history...
It's an emotional time, and the reality is yet to sink in:
"As I write these words, church bells are ringing out on all sides, as they did a few days ago when the bells of the Gedächtniskirche suddenly pealed out their bronze news about the open Wall and people knelt down and cried in the streets. There is always something ecstatic, moving, alarming about visible history. No-one can miss it. And no-one knows what is going to happen."
p.72 (MacLehose Press, 2012)
However, once the initial euphoria dies down, reality kicks in, and people begin to question whether this is such a good thing after all. The 'Wessis' worry about an influx of poor migrants and the possibility of higher taxes; the 'Ossis' wonder what exchange rate they will receive for their massively overvalued Ostmark and whether they will be able to keep their jobs in this brave new world. And Nooteboom is there to write it all down.
Roads to Berlin is an updated version of Nooteboom's book, supplementing the original work with chapters from later visits to Berlin and various pieces of writing connected with the topic. After the main event, the writer also branches out a little, turning his Berlin-centred story into a wider, German collection. In trips to Munich, Regensburg, Weimar (home of Goethe) and the Teutoburger Forest (where, crossing paths with Heine's journey northward, he sees the great statue of Hermann), Nooteboom indulges in his interest in art and architecture - and, of course, history.
It's an excellent book, one I enjoyed dipping into immensely, but I do have some reservations. For one thing, Nooteboom is a writer who appears to be writing primarily for himself, and he often takes his story in directions which may interest him a little more than his readers. There were times, particularly when he became sidetracked by paintings and statues, where I was very tempted to skip a few pages (the reading equivalent of having a pint in the pub while your partner checks out an art gallery).
The other issue I had with the book is that it felt like exactly what it is - a slightly uncohesive collection of writings which, while tangentially connected, fail to make up an integral whole. After the first 100 pages or so, I was never quite sure what Roads to Berlin was meant to be. Is it a book about Berlin (or Germany)? Is it mainly concerned with history, geography or politics? Is it really about Germany, or more about Nooteboom himself? I really couldn't tell you...
If you're prepared to overlook the (necessarily) messy nature of the book though, there's a lot here to like. Nooteboom is an accomplished writer, and each of the pieces, taken separately, is of enormous interest to a reader who wants to know more about the topic. Part of the credit here must go to Laura Watkinson as you really forget that Nooteboom is speaking to you through a third party, such is the quality of the translation. The voice that comes through is consistent, and very similar to the one I found in a novel I read earlier this year (Lost Paradise).
One idea that comes across particularly clearly is that despite inauspicious beginnings (Nooteboom's first memory is of the Germans invading the Netherlands...), the writer is very fond of Germany, particularly Berlin, and regrets a little the fact that he is no longer a part of the history being made there:
"What happens in this city in the coming years in the coming years will continue to interest me, but when you are not there, you no longer belong. You drop out of the ongoing conversation, the options, the constant regrouping of possibilities, memories, expectations..." p.201
It's a feeling many people share when they leave a place they have lived in for a long time. I have similar feelings whenever I look back at my time in Germany, knowing that however much I read and watch the news, I can never quite regain the connection I once had. In this way, Roads to Berlin, as much as being a story about the city, is just as much a book about a memory of once being a part of its story...
Today's post will be taking us on another trip to Berlin (and I can assure you that it won't be the last time we'll be visiting the German capital in November...). Unlike our previous journey though, this one is a lot more contemporary, and we'll be rubbing shoulders with the cool kids of the capital. It's time to put your going-out clothes on...
*****
Earlier this year, along with some other members of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 'Shadow Panel', I read Judith Hermann's third book, Alice, a collection of linked pieces about men, love, friendship and death. While the rest of the panel disliked the book (and that's putting it diplomatically!), I was a little less critical, seeing enough there to warrant giving the writer's work another go. All of which leads us to today's book, Hermann's first publication, Sommerhaus, später (Summerhouse, Later).
Sommerhaus, später is a collection of nine short stories, many of which are set in or around post-reunification Berlin.
It's a celebration and a recreation of the lives of young Berliners, carefree people who have school and study (mostly) behind them and the cares of the world too far in their future to worry about. It's a time for drink, drugs, sleeping around and lazy days in the summer sun. Don't worry though - the writer has a slightly darker angle on these sunny days.
You see, life among the young and beautiful isn't always what it's cracked up to be. In Camera Obscura, for example, a beautiful young woman finds herself attracted to a rich,intelligent and successful man - who happens to be ugly. It's a bleak story, one which lays bare the shallowness of the woman's existence. This shallowness is also revealed in Bali- Frau (Bali Woman), where a typical night of wanton drunkenness somehow merges into real life, a place Hermann's characters would rather avoid.
Even when the characters do have (slightly) more settled lives, they are a long way from having actually grown up. In Rote Korallen (Red Corals), a woman is trapped in a relationship with an older man who refuses to talk to her, wallowing as he is in his own self-pity. Relationships are also at the centre of one of my favourite stories, Sonja, in which a young artist begins a platonic relationship with a young woman (behind his girlfriend's back), one he is unable to break off, even when his friend begins to demand more from him.
One of the themes in Sonja, regret, is echoed in several of the stories. The title story revolves around a man with a dream of finding and repairing the perfect summerhouse, and the woman who can't make up her mind to step out of her infantile existence to join him - until, that is, it is already too late.
Often, there is a sense that the characters could actually be (may already be) happy, if only they could see it. In Sonja, the main character looks back and says:
"Heute denke ich, daß ich in diesen Nächten wohl glücklich war. Ich weiß, daß sich die Vergangenheit immer verklärt, daß die Erinnerung besänftigend ist. Vielleicht waren diese Nächte auch einfach nur kalt und in zynischer weise unterhaltsam. Heute aber kommen sie mir so wichtig vor und so verloren, daß es mich schmerzt."
pp.69-70 (Fischerverlag, 2009)
"Today, I think that I was actually happy on those nights. I know that the past has a habit of changing itself, that memories can be soothing. Those nights may simply have been cold and cynically entertaining. Today though they appear so important, and so lost, that it hurts."
He doesn't know what he has until it has gone, for good...
Hermann doesn't stay in Berlin for the entire collection though. Hurrikan (Something farewell) is set in the Caribbean, possibly Jamaica, and its characters are mostly Germans (an ex-pat and his visitors), whiling away the time before two storms (one literal, one metaphorical) hit the island. Hunter-Tompson-Musik, another of my favourite stories, takes place in New York, where an old man waiting for death in a cheap, squalid hotel finds a spark of life (and regret) in a chance encounter with a lost stranger. Getting out of Germany doesn't make life any easier for Hermann's creations though - they suffer from the same sense of Weltschmerz that those in Berlin do.
The final story, Diesseits der Oder (This Side of the Oder), is a slightly different tale, but a fitting one to end the collection. A middle-aged man living in his summer retreat near the Polish border grudgingly allows the daughter of an old friend to stay for a few days. This time, we get to see Hermann's generation through the eyes of a grumpy old man, one who has been there and done that long ago - and who knows how shallow and empty it all is. He muses about the young woman's life, thinking:
"Im Sommer laden sie sich Freunde in alte Autos, fahren an die Märkische Seeplatte, saufen Wein bis zum Umfallen und denken - das, was uns geschieht, geschieht niemandem sonst. Schwachsinn. Alles Schwachsinn." p.176
"In the summer, they pile into old cars with their friends, drive to the Märkische Lakes, drink wine until they collapse and think - what we experience, happens to nobody else. Rubbish. Complete rubbish."
By the end of the story though, he too is lost in regret, secretly yearning for the good old days. And that is where the beauty of the collection lies. While the people in Sommerhaus, später can be arrogant, selfish and stupid, they are having the time of their lives -
and nobody can take that away from them...
I enjoyed this collection, a lot more so than I did Alice, and I'm already looking forward to trying Hermann's other book of short stories Nichts als Gespenster (Nothing but Ghosts). This is a fairly easy read (I raced through it in a day), but it's one I intend to come back to. There is definitely something about Hermann's writing, and the stories she creates... although it could just be that I'm at that age where I look back at my younger days with regret ;)
One writer I've been wanting to try for some time is Joseph Roth, author of Radetzkymarsch, one of the most famous novels in the German language. While I won't be getting to that one this month, I thought I'd get a taste of his work by reading a famous novella, Hotel Savoy, so I was all set to start the bus off on the road to Vienna. That is, until I discovered that despite being described as an Austrian writer, Roth was actually born in Eastern Europe (present-day Ukraine) - and that his book takes place in Poland...
*****
Hotel Savoy is set in the years after World War One in the Polish town of Łódź. Gabriel Dan, a returning prisoner of war, arrives in the city on his journey westward. He is hoping to press onwards to America, but as his rich uncle, Phöbus Höhlaug lives in the city, he decides to stay for a while in the hope of getting the money he needs to emigrate. While he is waiting, he takes up residence in the Hotel Savoy, an imposing building in the centre of the town, where rich and poor alike are in residence - albeit on different floors.
Right at the start of the book, we see the hotel through Gabriel's eyes, his and our first impression of the town:
"Zum erstenmal nach fünf Jahren stehe ich wieder an den Toren Europas. Europäischer als alle anderen Gasthöfe des Ostens scheint mir das Hotel Savoy mit seinen sieben Etagen, seinem goldenen Wappen und einem livrierten Portier."
"For the first time in five years, I stand once again before the gates of Europe . The Hotel Savoy appears more European than any other resting place in the east, with its golden coat of arms and a liveried porter."
(my translation)
Once he enters the hotel though, we see that this grand facade hides a slightly more prosaic existence. While the bottom floors belong to the wealthy, the poor and displaced are hidden away in the upper floors. As is claimed in the book:
"In allen Städten der
Welt gibt es kleinere oder größere Savoys, und überall in den höchsten
Stockwerken wohnen die Santschins und ersticken am Dunst fremder
Wäsche."
"In every city in the world, there are small or large Savoys, and everywhere, on the highest floors, live the Santschins [the name of a poor family] of this world, suffocating in the steam of other people's washing."
Perhaps though, those on the higher floors are, as is occasionally alluded to, closer to God than the luxury-worshipping people down below...
The hotel is more than just a building, of course. It's a representation, an embodiment, of society, and the book is an allegory for the sorry state the world found itself in after the horrors of the Great War. Just as in the wider world, the hotel quickly separates the rich from the poor, and those lucky enough to live on the lower floors make sure that they pull together. For example, whenever a worker from the local factories dies, the doctor makes sure to give the cause of death as heart failure - and not lung failure caused by breathing in tiny fragments of cloth day in, day out at work...
Gabriel intends to move on quickly, but he finds himself strangely in tune with life in the hotel, in part because of the attractions of the cabaret artist, Stasia. As the days and weeks pass, it appears that he will struggle to ever leave the town - and the hotel. It's all very reminiscent of a book I spent a lot of time on last year :)
Unlike in Kafka's work though, there is a revolutionary streak running through Hotel Savoy. When Zwonimir, Gabriel's old friend from his army days, arrives in town, he acts as a catalyst, setting a light to the volatile atmosphere, sending the story towards a dramatic climax. As the rich housewives see a hypnotist to have their headaches cured (while their husbands cavort with naked dancers in the cellar bar), the poor and hungry are dying in the streets, lying in the dirt. It doesn't take a genius to see that things aren't going to end well.
Hotel Savoy is an entertaining story, fairly easy to read, but with a serious message underneath. What makes it even more interesting is that the hotel depicted in the novella is real, located in the central-Polish city of Łódź. There was a picture on Wikipedia of the hotel after its renovation, with beautiful, gleaming white walls. However, I decided that the picture above was far more interesting and, what's more, better suited to the story. While I wouldn't like to live at the Hotel Savoy myself, it is definitely a fun place to while away a few hours ;)
As promised, I'll be hosting a J-Lit event at the start of 2013, entitled January in Japan. I've created a separate site for the event, so please take a look, follow the new blog and sign up - it'll be worth it, promise ;)
As most of you will have gathered by now, far from being restricted to the big three countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), German-language literature comes from a wide area scattered across the heart of Europe. In the past on my blog, we've travelled to Poland and the Czech Republic on our literary travels, and today's journey takes us back into eastern Europe, for a first look at another country with a German-speaking minority. Make sure you're seated - this may be a bumpy ride...
*****
Herta Müller was fairly unknown in the English-speaking world before her Nobel Prize win back in 2009, but she is fast becoming one of the must-read German-language writers. Herztier (The Land of the Green Plums) is one of her most famous books and a good one to start with, describing as it does the life of a young woman in Müller's home country of Romania. While the novel is fiction, you suspect that there is an awful lot of Müller herself hidden within its pages.
Herztier is narrated by an unnamed woman in her early twenties, a student in 'the city' (possibly Bucharest) whose life is changed by the death of one of her university room-mates, Lola. Lola is flamboyant and carefree, and her morals are rather looser than certain people would like - and in 1980s Romania, standing out in this way is always going to cause trouble.
Lola commits suicide, using the narrator's belt to hang herself, and is posthumously expelled from the party. This action is the catalyst for the narrator's rejection of the system and her friendship with three young men (Edgar, Kurt and Georg) who are also ambivalent about the country they live in. At first, they enjoy messing around together and thumbing their nose at reality. Eventually though, real life begins to press down on them, exerting pressure that not all of them will be able to bear...
Herztier is a book about life in a repressive regime, a state where freedom is a distant dream. Even if daily life is fairly prosaic and uneventful, the knowledge of the potential repercussions of stepping out of line weighs down on the people, effectively rendering themselves self-censored. An example of this is given when a 'vote' is held to determine whether poor Lola should be expelled from the party:
"Der Turnlehrer hob als erster die Hand. Und alle Hände flogen ihm nach. Jeder sah beim Heben des Arms die erhobene Arme der anderen an. Wenn der eigene Arm noch nicht so hoch wie die anderen in der Luft war, streckte so mancher den Ellbogen noch ein bißchen. Sie hielten die Hände nach oben, bis die Finger müde nach vorne fielen und die Ellbogen schwer nach unten zogen."
p.35 (Fischerverlag, 2007)
"The P.E. teacher raised his hand first. And all the hands followed his. While raising their hands, everyone looked at the raised hands of the others. If their hand was not quite as high in the air as the others, they straightened their elbow a little more. They held their hands high until their fingers fell forward, tired, and their elbows drooped heavily downwards."
Of course, everyone raises their hand - even the narrator...
The writer portrays several ways to live your life, each of them chosen by one of the main characters in the novel. You can go with the flow and decide to cooperate with the regime, spying on family and friends. You can ignore it all and live life like an animal, working all day, having sex in the bushes, drinking, fighting and doing it all again the next day. You can give up on life in your homeland and apply to cross the border, never to see your country again. Or you can despair of anything ever happening and leave it all behind, once and for all...
While the story can be seen as an attack on the Ceausescu regime in general, though, it can also be read as a description of the treatment of ethnic and linguistic minorities in Communist Romania. The narrator and her friends are all ethnic Germans, descendants of German-speaking people who settled in the region generations before. They tease each other with insults about their background, but other people are more serious in their dislike of the 'outsiders'. The state is only too keen to pressure them into fleeing the country, leaving their homes and goods behind for 'real' Romanians.
Reading Herztier can be a little depressing at times. There is very little (almost no) joy and laughter, and the writer's style enhances this feeling of emptiness. The book consists of short sections moving around in time, most following the narrator's story, some exploring her childhood in the country, others foreshadowing future events. The prose is fairly plain on the whole, devoid of any descriptive beauty that might lighten the tone.
Other reviews of this book that I've seen have been very mixed, and I can understand why a lot of people aren't too keen on it. For me, it's a novel where the focus is squarely on the content rather than the style, but which still doesn't have a strong plot driving it forward. However, that's a deliberate choice. Herztier is meant to reflect the place the writer came from - decorating the starkness with pretty words would lessen the effect of the story.
I enjoyed Herztier, but I'm not convinced that Müller will become one of my favourite writers. I get the feeling that her success is due more to what she says than how she says it, and that (for me) is the wrong way round ;) Still, she's definitely a writer I'd like to try again, so if anyone has any suggestions, you know where to leave them. Comments, please :)
Theodor Fontane was definitely one of my better G-Lit finds last year. In addition to taking part in last year's Effi Briest readalong, I also read Frau Jenny Treibel and Unwiederbringlich (Irretrievable), so I was always going to add to that list for this years challenge. This time around, I've picked another of Fontane's tales of marital woe, so get comfy - the bus is off to Berlin today...
*****
L'Adultera is set in the German capital towards the end of the nineteenth century and is another of Fontane's Gesellschaftsromane (Society Novels). Wealthy businessman Ezekiel van der Straaten lives with his wife, Melanie, and their two children in a luxurious Berlin mansion. The fifty-two-year-old van der Straaaten married his beautiful Swiss wife ten years earlier - when she was just seventeen...
Although the marriage initially appears to be a happy one, it isn't long until the cracks appear. Van der Straaten can be boorish and arrogant at times, and his behaviour at a dinner party embarrasses his wife immensely. When the weather gets warmer, and it is finally time for Melanie to move out to the couple's country residence, she is only too glad to get some respite from her husband, whose work keeps him in the city for much of the time.
All that is needed for things to take a dramatic turn is a catalyst, and it is van der Straaten himself who unwittingly supplies one, in the shape of Ebenezer Rubehn. This young businessman is a relative of a business partner, and van der Straaten finds himself obliged to offer the young man a home while he is finding his feet in Berlin. Oh, did I mention that he was handsome, intelligent and cultured? This can't end well...
Anyone who was with us last year will immediately see that comparisons with Effi Briest are unavoidable. Once again, the writer is exploring the perils of a marriage where there is a significant age gap, and the inevitability of a bored young housewife having a wandering eye. However, in some ways it is a very different novel. Van der Straaten, despite what I've said so far, comes across as a much more sympathetic character than Effi Briest's Innstetten ever did. As for Melanie, well she's not quite so loveable - she's certainly no Effi ;)
The couple's true characters are revealed in a wonderful scene in Chapter 16, entitled 'Abschied' ('Farewell'). Van der Straaten acknowledges his shortcomings and pours his heart out to his estranged wife:
"Und
sieh, Melanie, weiter will ich auch jetzt nichts, oder sag' ich lieber,
will ich auch in Zukunft nichts. Denn in diesem Augenblick erscheint
dir das wenige, was ich fordere, noch als zu viel. Aber es wird anders,
muß anders werden."
"And
Melanie, I want nothing more at the moment, or rather, I will want
nothing more than this in future. At the moment, the little I demand
still seems too much for you. But that will change, it must change."
Melanie, however, is unable to see that her husband's brusque, humorous tone hides true feelings and simply feels repelled. It's tempting to say that she doesn't really deserve him...
There are constant intimations of impending disaster in L'Adultera, whose title, as well as being that of a painting, is the Italian for 'The Adultress'. Melanie is warned of such occurrences by one of her closest friends, and a story told to her by the gardener comes very close to home. Even van der Straaten himself, in buying the painting and in his anecdotes hints at the possibility of getting your fingers burnt:
"Und in die Luft geflogen warum? Weil die Leute, die mit dem Feuer spielen, immer zu sicher sind und immer die Gefahr vergessen. Ja, Melanie, du lachst. Aber, es ist so, immer die Gefahr vergessen."
"And why was he blown to kingdom come? Because people who play with fire are always overconfident and always forget the risk. Yes, Melanie, you may well laugh. But it's true, they always forget the risk."
Sadly though, despite being a man of the world in many ways, in others he is blind and unsuspicious. As the narrator says:
"Und am wenigsten sah er sie von der Seite her gefährdet, von der aus die Gefahr so nahe lag und von jedem andern erkannt worden wäre."
"And he saw the least danger to her in the direction from which it was most likely to come and which would have been perceived by anyone else."
Hindsight may be a wonderful thing, but surely most people would think that bringing a handsome young man into your house and leaving
him alone with your beautiful young wife is tempting fate a tad, no?
While L'Adultera is not quite up to the standard of a couple of Fontane's other novels (the ending, in particular, is a little weak), it's still an enjoyable read, especially because such novels are relatively rare in nineteenth-century German-language literature. In a sea of novellas, Fontane's longer works stand out like beacons, particularly to those of us reared on Victorian blockbusters which require wheels if you're planning to take them out of your study.
In fact, it is the similarities with another of my favourite writers, Anthony Trollope, which attract me to Fontane. Like Trollope, Fontane is skillful in his depictions of the well-off citizens of a successful empire, and he is also very sympathetic in his portrayal of unhappy marriages and the effect they have on the women involved. In one way, Fontane even has an advantage over his English counterpart - he is able to be much more daring when writing about characters with loose morals, which leads for some fascinating ethical dilemmas. So, if you've always fancied reading some Victorian novels without implausibly virtuous young women, you could do worse than give Fontane a try...
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...
Today I'm moving on from novellas to poetry, with a couple of short works I randomly threw together. Of course, as is often the case, if you look hard enough, you can find connections anywhere - and today I didn't have to look very hard at all... Fasten your seat-belts; today sees us crossing the Rhine (in style, of course!).
*****
First up today is Goethe's Hermann und Dorothea, a late-18th-century pastoral story of a rural romance. Hermann, an innkeeper's son, is out one day offering supplies to refugees fleeing from the French troops who have pushed the Germans back over the Rhine. Suddenly he sees a beautiful, gentle maiden who is taking care of a woman and her child - and, well, you can guess the rest... After a brief trip home, Hermann returns with a couple of friends, determined to find out more about the lovely Dorothea and, if possible, to bring her home as his wife.
While I originally had my doubts, Hermann und Dorothea is actually poetry, written in unrhyming hexameters. I only found this out after the event though - you see, my Kindle version didn't keep the original lines, leaving me thinking that it was stilted prose with capital letters in funny places :(
There is a rather political background to this work. The setting is a time when there was no German nation, just an abstract dream of uniting hundreds of independent fiefdoms which shared a (fairly) common language and heritage. Goethe is setting up his two characters as examples of Germanic ideals, prime caring Teutonic citizens who work hard for the common good.
To be honest though, this was not my kind of story. I found it simple and uninspiring, and the resolution was never in doubt. I really didn't like the writing much either - its focus on dialogue over description was disappointing. I hate to say it, but this might be another Goethe nominee for a Golden Turkey (the second nomination in a row!). For one of the undisputed greats of world literature, Goethe really doesn't have a very high strike-rate around these parts ;)
*****
Moving on fifty years or so (it's lucky that the bus has time travel as a standard feature...), we're crossing the Rhine once more - in the same direction, but with very different feelings. The German poet Heinrich Heine spent most of his later life in self-imposed exile in Paris, reluctant to expose himself to danger from the ever-present Prussian censors. Like any good German though, he did get homesick, and the result of one of his rare journeys home resulted in the poem Deutschland. Ein Wintermärchen (Germany. A Winter's Tale).
The poem, preceded by a prose introduction, is the story of Heine's journey (as shown on the map) across the border, up through the Rhine country and Westphalia, to his family home in Hamburg. As he presses further into his home country, he describes the landscape, the people and the institutions with quick wit and poetic licence - and his opinions are rarely favourable. He comes to bury the Prussians, not to praise them...
Things have changed since the writing of Hermann und Dorothea, and not for the better. German unification is only a matter of decades away, but it will be achieved under the jackboot (and I use the word deliberately) of the powerful state of Prussia. The creation of a major German-speaking state is to be achieved not by a coming together of minds, but by one state gobbling up dozens of others and becoming a major player in European politics. When English speakers today think of typical negative German stereotypes, it's often the legacies of the Prussians that we have in mind.
Heine despises the Prussian authoritarianism and misses no opportunity to mock its people and institutions:
"Noch immer das hölzern pedantische Volk,
Noch immer ein Rechter Winkel
In jeder Bewegung, und im Gesicht
Der eingefrorene Dünkel" (Caput III)
"They're still the same wooden, pedantic folk,
And still with ninety degrees
In every movement, and in their face
Darkness in a deep freeze" *
* Translated very loosely to keep the rhyme ;)
As a native of Hamburg says, after the fire that destroyed much of the city, the other German states were quick to offer aid:
"Man schickte uns Kleider und Betten genug,
Auch Brot und Fleisch und Suppen!
Der König von Preußen wollte sogar
Uns schicken seine Truppen." (Caput XXI)
"They sent us all clothes and bedding enough,
With bread and meat and soups!
The King of Prussia even desired
To send us all his troops."
It may sound at times as if the poet hates his home country, but that is not the case. In fact he's very patriotic - he just has a different idea of what this means to the people who are in charge...
I did enjoy Deutschland. Ein Wintermärchen, but it wasn't the beautiful poetry I had been expecting. It seems more like comedy at times, a little slapstick and verging on limerick-style in places. In his introduction, Heine says that in getting the book past the censor, some of the bite has had to be extracted, and that there is, perhaps, too much humour. I would certainly agree that the satire is a lot tamer than it might have been.
Despite that though, it does make for good reading, and it's probably a good one for anyone wanting to try something in German. The short sections, and the straight-forward verse, make it a fairly simple read, even if you're a little short on confidence. All in all, Heine's poem is entertaining stuff - and certainly not what I was expecting...
My second post for Week One addresses a play, one I intended to get to last year (but never did). If Goethe is the undisputed Batman of German Literature, then to find his Robin we should look no further than Friedrich Schiller, noted playwright, poet, historian and philosopher (it's a wonder he also found time to fight crime...). Back into the bus with you all - we're off to the south-west of Germany today...
*****
Schiller's 1784 play Kabale und Liebe, or Love and Intrigues, is set in one of the many German principalities of the time. The plot revolves around the romance between Major Ferdinand von Walter, the son of a high-ranking politician, and Luise Miller, the daughter of a musician. Despite the disparity in social status, Ferdinand is not merely dallying with Luise's intentions, fully intending to make an honest woman of his lover. However, his father has other ideas, and with a little help from his trusty assistant, he begins to think about how best to break the happy couple up.
Schiller peoples his play with some wonderful characters, all of whom have a pivotal role to play in the events to follow. Miller, Luise's father, is a cantankerous musician with a sarcastic tongue, a man who is well aware of the dangers involved in looking too high for love. Wurm (whose name is well chosen...) is the assistant to Ferdinand's father and has designs on the lovely Luise himself. Lady (Milady Johanna von Norfolk) is a ruined English aristocrat who lives off the bounty of the Prince - but secretly has feelings for Ferdinand. And Ferdinand's father? Well, he is a cunning politician who is hoping to pull the strings to his benefit...
I came into this work with an open (read 'empty') mind, knowing little more about the play than the writer and the title, and from the first few scenes, I actually had the impression that it was to be a comedy of errors, with everything working itself out in the end. Gradually though, the tone changes, and by the middle of the play, it is clear that this is a story which is unlikely to have a happy ending.
While the 'Liebe' of the title is fairly self-explanatory, the intrigues may need a little more explaining. At the time of the play, Germany as a country did not actually exist. Instead, in addition to the larger states such as Prussia, Austria and Bavaria, hundreds of tiny Principalities and Grand Duchies operated as mini-states, each with its autocratic ruler and hangers on. Ferdinand's father, the President, has achieved the highest of ranks in this principality, having *somehow* removed his predecessor from office. Ferdinand's romantic wishes are awkward for his father, as he is hoping to use his son's marriage to further strengthen his position - by marrying him off to the Prince's mistress...
The tragedy of Kabale und Liebe is that things could end well, despite the intrigues, if only everyone could be a little more patient. Wurm's cunning plan (and there is a little of the Baldricks about the President's side-kick) has several weak points, but unfortunately Ferdinand's jealousy means that he is blind to the obvious falseness of the plot, even when one of the main perpetrators confesses that it is a lie. In fact, Ferdinand shows himself to be completely immature, a man who has captured the hearts of not one, but two, women - and is unworthy of either one of them. His arrogant appeal to God is typical:
"Ich
will dich nicht zur Rede stellen, Gott Schöpfer - Aber warum denn dein
Gift in so schönen Gefäßen?"
"I don't wish to put you on the spot, oh God, Creator - But why do you have to store your poison in such beautiful containers?"
Oh, the irony...
As a tale of star-crossed lovers, the comparison between Kabale und Liebe and Romeo and Juliet is obvious. However, the scenes between Ferdinand and Luise are not particularly exceptional (the two lovers are fairly weak characters compared to some); in fact, one of the best scenes in the play is the one between Ferdinand and the English Lady, when the immature nobleman proposes in a way guaranteed to provoke rejection, and she flings his offer back at his feet after laying bare her love and humiliating the abject suitor.
In a story where the two young lovers are both forced to choose between romantic love and loyalty to their father, the real tragedy is that they make different choices, leading them down the road to disaster. It's a familiar tale, but Schiller handles it deftly, at the same time thumbing his nose at the ruler of the Principality he was forced to leave in a hurry. Yes, it's over two-hundred-years old, but (just like Shakespeare's work) Kabale und Liebe still speaks to people today because it concerns basic fundamental human truths: people fall in love, and other people do nasty things to break them apart. So ist das Leben...
