Gilgi

 

Gilgi / Irmgard Keun
trans. from the German by Geoff Wilkes
NY: Melville House, 2013, c1931.
240 p.

Imagine my delight when I saw this lovely Neversink edition of Gilgi at a secondhand bookstore recently. I've been looking for more Keun, after reading her Artificial Silk Girl quite a few years ago. I was pleased to now be able to read her first novel. 

I found this story full of hectic energy and a strong female voice, like her other novels. This story is a little scattered, perhaps because it's her first, but it is still snappy and fresh and full of sharp social commentary. Gilgi knows what she wants, she has her eye on a business career, teaching herself typing and languages and dressing the part of an efficient secretary. She's young, energetic and ambitious. 

But, like many other young women, she gets completely sidetracked when she meets a man. He's a friend of her friend and somehow she becomes infatuated so thoroughly that she puts aside her timetable and ambition to focus on him. She leaves her parents' house to move in with him, after they've told her she's adopted - even her quest to discover her birth mother feels anticlimatic after she switches her energy to focus on her new man. 

But even within this absorbing relationship, there are prickles from the outside that disturb her. She comes across an old acquaintance who is selling vacuums door to door; she visits his wife, another old friend, only to discover they are nearly destitute, with 3 children and another on the way, and about to be evicted. She rushes around for a lengthy part of the second half of the book, trying to find some money for them; it's a nightmarish, frantic scene. And then she finds that she is also facing a momentous decision -- and makes what I felt was the right one, striking out on her own once more. 

This story is powerful and feels so contemporary. Gilgi is living in Germany post WWI, and rising fascism is all around her, for those who cared to look. She faces misogyny when she goes to see a doctor, and there is a great speech she gives about the right of a woman to make her own decisions. She flits around nightclubs, around offices, around town, and gives a vision of class and privilege that can differ wildly within very close quarters. As always, Keun doesn't pull any punches in her realism, and the result is a wonderful, illuminating read. 

What You Can See From Here

What You Can See From Here / Mariana Leky
trans. from the German by Tess Lewis
London: Picador, 2022, c2017.
336 p.

I really enjoyed this read that I came across by chance in my library's collections. it's a German book, set in a small village in Western Germany, near a large forest. 

10 year old Luise lives with her parents, and her grandmother Selma, who she is very close to. As the story begins, there is drama: Selma has dreamt of an okapi, a sign of forthcoming death. The villlagers take this omen seriously, but when a death comes, it is not one any of them expected. 

The opening section of the book finishes with this stark conclusion to Luise's childhood, and the next part begins when she's older. The village is still the same; all the oddballs and local residents behave in much the same ways. Selma's friend The Optician still visits and is still silently in love with her -- Luise's parents are still barely holding their marriage together what with her father travelling the world and rarely home -- Sad Marlies is still a grumpy recluse -- but Luise comes across three Buddhist monks in the woods while looking for her dog, and that changes her life once again. 

Another ten years go by, and then Luise's life alters again when Selma dies. This shakes up the community, moving people into new configurations. Luise now works at a bookshop in a neighbouring town, her mother has left her father, and her Buddhist monk returns to their village from his monastery in Japan. There's change in the air. 

The delight of this book is in the style, a relaxed storytelling pace with rich characters, quirky moments, but also some serious events as well. It's an easy read, which flows, and the humour and heart really kept me engaged. I found that the way this book dealt with love and loss, with familial ties and expectations, and the need to find your own place in the world, was eminently readable. I was touched by it, and also delighted with its quirky charm. It was a great find, not too esoteric or experimental, but just a good read. 

Fraulein Schmidt & Mr. Anstruther

 

Fraulein Schmidt and Mr. Anstruther / Elizabeth von Arnim
London: Virago, 2006, c1907.
392 p.

Now this is an epistolary novel that really works! It is absolutely dependent on the fact that it is a set of letters, and in this case, one sided letters. We only see the missives to Mr. Anstruther from Fraulein Schmidt - we are left to guess the other bits from her responses. I found it very successful. 

It begins with Rose-Marie writing an ecstatic letter to Roger -- he was boarding with her teacher father for a year to study in Germany, and told her of his feelings for her just before going back to England. The letters are charming and funny and romantic, but get shorter and a little less expansive as she waits to hear back. 

Her letters cool down slowly, especially when Roger, now Mr. Anstruther, writes to let her know that he is going to become engaged to a British girl -- not his choice of course but he must follow the requests of his father and his career prospects. But they can remain friends and correspondents. 

Rose-Marie manages this admirably, changing her position to one of "older sister", as she tells him, someone concerned with his well-being but able to criticize and advise as well. And we see through her letters that she grows, and becomes more able to state things clearly, and to be realistic about her life and prospects. Until Mr. Anstruther desires to become Roger once more, and puts Fraulein Schmidt into an awkward position...

Elizabeth von Arnim's writing is sharp and clear, and in this novel particularly I thought she had the voice of a practical young woman down. As in most of her work, the conflict between being German and English is part of the story, and she's able to point out some of the absurdities in both cultures. I recently read an academic study of comedy in her novels, and it surmised that the humour is such that it requires a sympathetic reader, one who can sense the irony and situational wryness -- I think many bookish women readers will be the right ones for this story, and will 'get it'. 

I loved Rose-Marie's voice and her independence. She's a clever letter writer - I'd love for her to write to me. I'm not sure what I think of the ending, it could mean a couple of different things if you extrapolate and imagine. Von Arnim's intent and direction of the narrative probably mean one thing but I wondered if the story could possibly play out another way past the final pages. I couldn't help hoping that Rose-Marie would get everything that she wanted. This was an amusing book, but with emotional heft, and a wonderful main character. One of my favourite Von Arnim books. 

Visitation

Visitation / Jenny Erpenbeck
trans. from German by Susan Bernofsky
NY: New Directions, 2010.
151 p.

I really like Jenny Erpenbeck; I've read two of her novels over the last year or two. I found this one in my library's online collection so jumped on it, even though I'm trying to focus on some of my own books this year! I couldn't resist this. 

It's a brief book, and quite poetic in its structure and repetition of phrases. However, the content can be quite hard-hitting. The story is focused on one house over a century of German history -- and we know that German history has had some very dark moments over the last century. 

Erpenbeck examines 12 interlocking individuals whose connections are via this house. She describes the house from its creation to its destruction; the architect who builds in in the late 19th C. to the couple who tears it down after Reunification. The family stories and individual histories cross and blend and end, both near the house and in a wider Germany. 

I feel that there needs to be a warning that there is a scene of sexual violence that is very disturbing. I'm not sure quite why it was there, but I found it really upsetting. 

The other elements are more expected -- lots of WWII and East Germany trauma, and the effects of fascism and communism. This doesn't diminish the horror of some chapters; Erpenbeck doesn't hold back from being brutally factual. 

Despite how dark this is, it's an interesting approach to a century's worth of history. The house is the pivot, but everything else spins out around it. Her writing style is also dreamy somehow, with a brief break between harder to read sections focusing on the gardener for the estate and the way that what he does never really changes over the years; it's a sense of continuity. 

I found this a powerful read, but her later novels are stronger, in my opinion. I still prefer End of Days and Go Went Gone to this one for their stories. But I'll never say no to an Erpenbeck read! 

Some Girls, Some Hats & Hitler

Some Girls, Some Hats & Hitler / Trudi Kanter
NY: Scribner, c2012
272 p.

This was an unusual read -- a memoir first published in 1984 in England, then rediscovered a decade or so ago and republished. It follows the life of Trudi Kanter, an Austrian milliner who used her business to escape Hitler's incursions into Austria (after many struggles). 

It has a different take on WWII; Trudi is very focused on her business and her relationship, not so much on politics or social action. This story is about her. She's a regular person trying to keep her head down and not get involved in everything that's going on, rather, she wants to keep her life the way it is and continue her sewing and hatmaking without any disturbance. 

Unfortunately for her, being in the midst of Germany's invasion and being a Jewish woman, that doesn't happen. 

The story is full of incidents told clearly and plainly -- how she talks her way into a buying trip outside of Austria even when travel is restricted, how clients in England assist their escape, and how her parents stay in Austria thinking it can't possibly get worse (they do eventually get out). She describes her workroom and the women in it, and the way that some of them remain loyal to Trudi despite everything, and some not so much. The discussion of her business and the day to day work, and her own clothing as well as her husband's outfits, is of course of great interest too. 

I've seen some readers mention that they felt this was too 'lightweight' to be a proper WWII memoir, but I think that might be a bias against fashion as a serious topic coming through. Trudi does not hide the difficulties they faced, but she does use her connections and her own chutzpah to get them out of the country before they face any deportations or camps -- so that there is no element of that level of suffering here. That doesn't make her story any less compelling. 

The style is also very good. It moves along quickly, it has an intimate tone that draws you in, and her observational skills are finely honed. People leap to life in her words. The final chapter or so, describing their postwar life in England as businesspeople and refugees, is not quite as intense or complex, but hearing about how Trudi got them back on track after being displaced makes you admire this tough woman who could take care of herself. 

I thought it was a good read, another viewpoint via a personal account of those years from someone outside of Germany but still caught up in the growing disaster. If you're interested in millinery, women in business, the Austrian experience of German invasion, or a look at people with all their flaws showing, this will interest you.

*****************************

first published at FollowingTheThread.ca Nov/19