In between what’s now dubbed the “Tory Civil War” and what should be called a Brexit Shambles, British media still have time and space for culture. A few hours ago, the news broke, the shortlist for this year’s Man Booker Prize had been announced.
At just under 160 pages, this is a short novel; but don’t be fooled! Sarah Moss offers a powerful and convincing story. Her “Ghost Wall” describes what happens during an archaeological experiment.
With Takis Würger’s latest novel unavailable, I picked up “Der Club” by chance. Lucky me: Würger’s first novel quite rightly became an overnight success, when it appeared in Germany in 2017. Lucky you: an English translation became available March 2019.
The subtitle on the front cover of “The Hunger” declares: based on a true story. For readers like me, unfamiliar with this true story, Alma Katsu includes a “Historical Note” at the end of her fictional account. The real, as well as Katsu’s fictional story, are both horrifying.
In his introduction, the author mentions he visited places where Spinoza lived and worked. There is not much left. Spinoza’s portrait is fictional. The stone in a former graveyard, does not mark the exact place of his grave.
In preparation for a “meet the author” event, I visited a local library. Disappointingly, it only stocked two of the author’s long list of publications and these were no recent ones. One historic novel was “Im Licht der Lagune”; the other “Die Nacht des Don Juan”.
In “Im Licht der Lagune”, the sense of seeing, observing, watching, being spied upon, as well as the art of painting and drawing play an important role. In “Die Nacht des Don Juan” hearing, overhearing, listening, as well as creating, composing, performing and experiencing music are important. Where “Im Licht der Lagune” takes place in Venice, “Die Nacht des Don Juan” is situated in Prague.
There is no evidence Casanova and Mozart met in Prague. However, Casanova did know Lorenzo da Ponte, the librettist with whom Mozart worked on “Don Giovanni”. This opera was first performed in Prague and Casanova did leave some papers which seem to be linked to this opera. Using a few facts, Hanns-Josef Ortheil describes a fictional account of Casanova meeting Lorenzo da Ponte and Mozart in Prague in 1787.
Though not a Venice, Versailles, or Vienna, Prague is no cultural backwater. Yet on arrival, Casanova of course considers it to be a dismal provincial town. Casanova has accepted an invitation by an acquaintance to come and stay at his Prague home.
However, Casanova’s host suddenly has to leave for Vienna. Leaving his guest to fend for himself, this count orders his servants to ensure Casanova feels at home. One of the count’s musical servants, Paolo, becomes Casanova’s man servant. .
Some time before Casanova turned up on the doorstep, the count banished his daughter Anna Maria to a convent. There she has recurring nightmares of a masked man chasing after her. The banished Anna Maria is regularly visited by her maid Joanna, who worries about her mistress’ health.
Casanova is soon bored and dissatisfied. Rearranging furniture, food preparations, musical wake-up calls – in short: the total manner in which the household is run – , keeps him occupied the first few days. Then he starts meddling in the servants’ lives and love affairs.
On a stroll through Prague, Casanova bumps into his fellow Venetian, Lorenzo da Ponte. Casanova and da Ponte know each other – and don’t think the world of each other. Da Ponte complains about the new opera he is working on. This creative project is not running smoothly. There are problems with the singers, the orchestra, the libretto, the music.
Of course, Casanova can’t resist meddling. He deftly outmanoeuvres da Ponte and meets Mozart. Mozart in the meantime, is worried about his pregnant wife. She, on the other hand, suspects her husband is having an affair with a local beauty. In the meantime, Anna Maria has taken up to disguising herself as Joanna her maid. For this enables Anna Maria to escape from the convent and walk all over Prague.
The stage is set. In no time, plot and characters of this novel start mirroring events of Mozart’s “Figaro” and especially “Don Giovanni’. There are hilarious scenes, like the one in which Casanova feels utterly superior to Paolo and shows off his knowledge of good food and table manners which he acquired at various courts throughout Europe. Paolo is horrified by Casanova’s impressively dirty eating habits.
In the end, Casanova – the ultimate Don Juan or Don Giovanni – does not end as badly as Mozart’s Don Giovanni. In the opera, Don Giovanni is dragged off to hell. Casanova will end his life isolated, frustrated, unhappy in a remote Bohemian castle, working as a librarian and writing his memoirs.
Of course, one simply has to listen to Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” during or directly after reading this hilarious, splendid novel. Especially the sly and meddling Casanova is highly entertaining, yet totally human. But if you do not like opera that much, you may be interested in reading one of the author’s serious works, based on Mozart’s letters: “Mozart im Innern seiner Sprache.”
“Die Nacht des Don Juan”, Hanns-Josef Ortheil, published in 2000. The book is available in translations, but I was unable to google an English one.
“Mozart im Innern seiner Sprache“, Hanns-Josef Ortheil, published in 1982
Both slim pockets start with the main character, a man, sitting in a Parisian café. Both men notice a woman whose story then becomes the novel’s focal point. In Joseph Kessel’s book “La Passante de Sans Souci”, the café’s name is “Sans Souci”. In Patrick Modiano’s “Le Café de la Jeunesse Perdue”, the café’s name is of course quite clear.
Patrick Modiano received the Nobel Prize for Literature for his complete oeuvre in 2014. So never having read anything by him before, I decided to find myself one of his novels. “Le Café de la Jeunesse Perdue” was the first one I found.
The first few chapters of “Le Café de la Jeunesse Perdue” reminded me strongly of “La Passante de Sans Souci”. The novel actually mentions a café called “Sans-Souci”. I read Joseph Kessel’s “La Passante de Sans Souci” in the summer of 2014, after finding a second-hand copy in Brussels. Of course “La Passante” is well-known because of the film “The Passerby” in which Romy Schneider plays mysterious Elsa.
The first chapters of each novel describe the main male character having a drink. Each story starts from his perspective, his point of view. Both men notice a mysterious woman. In “Le Café”, she sits at the edge of a set of people or sits with a book at a table. She does not totally belong there and receives the nickname Louki.
In “La Passante”, the woman passes and uses a café window to adjust her clothes. The man then starts noticing her regularly and in the end, when he is drunk, Elsa ensures he gets home safely. The books describe a Paris, café scene and people of different eras. “La Passante” describes a Paris recovering from the Second World War. “Le Café” seems to describe a Paris in the sixties or perhaps shortly after that wild time, but when drugs and addictions are already firmly established.
In “Le Café”, names are jotted down by one of the crowd. When he disappears, the main character notices Louki’s name is always jotted down in a different colour. This is one of the things which intrigue him. When he later accidentally crosses her path in a different Parisian neighbourhood, he starts playing detective.
He finds her husband and pretends to search her. From then on, the viewpoint of the story regularly shifts without warning. The history and story of Louki are told partly by Louki herself, partly by friends and partly by the main character. Of course, the story ends badly: it is a story of lost youth, innocence and lives.
In “La Passante”, the main character discovers Elsa lives with a small young boy. It turns out, she fled Nazi occupied Austria and the boy is not her son. They are waiting for her husband to return, after he was arrested by Nazis. This story is told from one single point of view: the main character narrates it. Of course, it also ends badly.
Though Patrick Modiano received a Nobel Prize for his complete oeuvre, Joseph Kessel’s “La Passante the Sans Souci” is by far the better one. The tragic story of a life spiralling downwards and out of control is revealed slowly and remorselessly. Elsa is caught up in events she is unable to escape from. Jacqueline on the other hand, makes her own choices – up to a degree. Elsa seems helplessly caught in a downward spiral, whereas Jacqueline chooses from various options.
Tragic events taking place in “La Passante de Sans Souci” remain lodged in one’s memory. Elsa and little Max, as well as the man who becomes caught up in their tragedy, are far more sympathetic than Jacqueline and the main character of “Le Café de la Jeunesse Perdue”. The shattering of illusions, dreams, and hope is far more profound and more absorbingly described in “La Passante de Sans Souci”.
“La Passante de Sans Souci”, Joseph Keller, 1936
“Dans le café de la jeunesse perdue”, Patrick Modiano, 160 pp, 2007, Editions Gallimard
Attending a “meet the author” event is always interesting. It is not only a chance to hear a writer tell about the creation process, problems, difficulties, successes. It is also a chance to check what you understood about story, themes, issues, characters, symbolism.
So after reading “Cabo da Gata”, I jumped at the chance to attend an interview with its author Eugen Ruge a few weeks later. He was interviewed about both his novels. His large work which deals with his family’s history, “In Zeiten des abnemendes Licht” or “In Times of Fading Light”, as well as “Cabo da Gata”.
As I haven’t read his debut novel yet, I have to take the interviewer’s word on it, that “Cabo da Gata” is a next chapter in a history which started with his debut novel. “Cabo da Gata” certainly takes place after the Berlin Wall has fallen. This is clear from the Berlin described in its first few chapters.
The interviewer, Anna Seid, mentioned that Eugen Ruge had studied mathematics and that scientific theories are mentioned throughout “Cabo da Gata”. This was one of the things which had escaped me. No idea why, for when the author read aloud the first few pages, math and mathematical theories stuck out.
The writer’s block from which the main character suffers, was of course discussed. This led to interesting questions. Do authors need to leave a place to describe it? Do authors have to visit places they want to write about? Eugen Ruge mentioned he can’t write about a place he has not visited. A lady in the audience remarked not all authors need to visit places to write about them.
Contrary to what several German reviewers and I had read in the story, Anna Seid said this was not a story about someone shattered by events. She remarked that nothing much happens in this novel.
Eugen Ruge said that one of the things he’d wanted to write about was, what life had been like before the internet, mobile phones, twitter, and other stuff people are now unable to live without, had taken over life.
It is true, that many are now totally unable to survive without Facebook or Twitter. Many also need to be weaned off the internet, or gaming. This is not the case with the main character, who has no mobile phone and survives without internet. An outdated travel guide serves him well enough to end up in “Cabo da Gata”.
Is life more adventurous without Google Earth, Google Streetview, Google Translate, Apps and similar whatnots? Humanity used to be perfectly able to survive without these.
Ms Seid mentioned the inability of the main character to break free from routines. The most obvious example is how he makes coffee in Berlin and ends up making coffee in Cabo da Gata. In the village, routine is perhaps even more present than in Berlin – for each week of the day has its set meal and the sequence never changes.
Of course, Ms Seid talked about the cat. She stated the main character’s father is present in the book, but his mother has died and his partner has left him. The main character seems to have a problem with females. One does not have to be a literary critic or professor to notice this.
For a while, the cat sleeps at the end of the bed during the night. Ms Seid claimed the cat therefore symbolised the main character’s mother. As the cat shares the main character’s bed, she continued, the main character had an incestuous relationship with his mother – for the cat becomes pregnant.
The audience blinked. I thought only a university lecturer in German literature who’s still firmly stuck in Freudian literary analyses could come up with such an interpretation. Everybody stared dumbfounded.
Personally, after studying English lit and a few different forms of literary criticism, I remain wary of Freud and not that impressed by literary criticism. To detect an Oedipus complex and incestuous relationship, including the main character impregnating a cat – remains a bit far-fetched for me. But perhaps you’ll agree with this lecturer.
The audience took time to digest Ms Seid’s interpretation. What about the author? After a short silence, he did not deny the importance of the cat and that it symbolized something. But he did not support the interviewer’s interpretation.
Regardless, I remain impressed by the many themes and ideas which Eugen Ruge put into his novel. This slim book can be read and reread, as new themes and ideas will strike its reader. As for the cat: you’d better start reading “Cabo da Gata” yourself and draw your own conclusion. An English translation is forth-coming.
“Cabo da Gata”, Eugen Ruge, 208 pp, Rowolt 2013
YouTube English interview of Eugen Ruge by Peter Craven on Eastern Germany and the novel “In Times of fading Light”.
German review of Gabo da Gata in Der Zeit
German review of Gabo da Gata in Frankfurter Allgemeine
You may occasionally have the same idea as Eugen Ruge’s main character in his short German novel “Cabo de Gata”: opt out of your present life and start somewhere new. People usually have this urge, after life has dealt them a series of serious blows.
Eugen Ruge, who won the prestigeous Deutscher Buchpreis in 2011, has dedicated this book. “Für M. Diese Geschichte habe ich erfunden, um zu erzählen, wie es war”. The story found the writer to be told what it really was like. Which made me wonder: who was M and is the story autobiographical?
The last sentence in the book reads “Aufgeschrieben zwischen November 2011 und August 2012”. But this only tells us it was written between November 2011 and August 2012. It remains one of Cabo di Gata’s mysteries: is the story fictional, or partly autobiographical? Regardless: this slender novel is pretty impressive.
Mine had an excerpt from a review by Sandra Kegel in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: “… wie unafgeregt, ja fast heiter Ruge vom Scheitern erzählt. …” on its back. The story is indeed told in a very tense manner, without frills. It ends with a description of a dying fish and how witnessing this death causes Peter Handke to catch a bus and pick up his life.
But before Peter Handke boards this bus, the reader meets him in this novel’s first part called: “Die Kündigung”. Peter is still in Berlin, drinking coffee at a local café and something triggers him to chuck everything in: a “Kündigung”.
The book has two timelines. Events are described by a Peter who’s somewhere in the future who retells events “as they were”. He’s going over his memories and feelings and events, from the moment he decides to quit Berlin.
He sells stuff. He chucks things out. He buys a few things for a journey. He stores a few precious belongings in the cellar of his father’s small house. By then, it’s clear that Peter is upset, unhappy, angry, shattered. His mother died – a while ago. His relationship broke down – a while ago. But where Peter’s father and Peter’s ex are starting new relationships, Peter has no one and nothing left.
On New Year’s Day, he leaves for Spain. He’s looking forward to a warm winter, but the Spain he finds does not live up to expectations. An out-of-date travel-guide brings him to Andalusia, where he ends up in the small fishing village Cabo de Gata.
Part two is called “Der Krebs”. Peter rents a room at a small café – for the night. The village resembles a ghost town, occupied by dogs during the day and cats during the night. He has only one book with him: “Colossos” by Miller; a book he does not like much. Moreover, the night turns out to be extremely cold.
The next morning, Peter goes for a walk along the beach searching for shells. On his way back, he discovers one of the shells was occupied by a now dead crab. As Peter’s astrological sign is also the crab, he decides to stay in the village.
Slowly the sun “warms” him, he establishes a routine, picks up writing, establishes some kind of nodding relationship with a few villagers.
Towards the end of this part, a tourist arrives. This tourist turns out to be an Englishman who has also chucked in his previous life. He now travels through Spain on a motorbike. He wants to visit the nearby nature reserve. Together, the men find the village’s flamingo colony. Afterwards, the Englishman moves on.
In part three “Die Katze” or “The cat”, Peter lists the mysteries in the village. The mysteries are linked to bits and pieces of civilization left behind in the village. These range from a tower to a locked suitcase. It’s clear Peter becomes more interested in his surroundings, though the mysteries will not be solved.
Another tourist arrives. This time an American, who later mysteriously disappears during a night out on the beach. Did he leave? Was he murdered? Did he drown?
Peter starts taking care of one of the village’s stray cats. He has become part of village life and though an outsider, is now able to have short Spanish conversations with a few inhabitants. Peter starts to relate to life again.
When the cat disappears, Peter is unable to find it again. Letting go is difficult, but then he goes off to Almeria, stays the night there, and decides to walk back along the beach. At Cabo de Gata, the fishing boats have pulled in. Peter watches the catch being sold and decides it’s time to leave.
This synopsis makes the story sound simple, but it’s beautifully told and described. It shows how someone who opts out of life, spends months picking up the pieces at a small village till he is able to face things again. The healing process is written with the minimum of details, stark yet very moving, impressive and powerful.
“Cabo de Gata”, Eugen Ruge, 203 pp, Rowohlt Verlag, 2013.
The complete German review of “Cabo de Gata” by Sandra Kegel in the FAZ.
Interested in visiting Cabo de Cata: tourist info on Cabo de Gata, Analusia
Katevents 