Marriage Material by Sathnam Sanghera

 

Marriage Material

by Sathnam Sanghera

The Woman from Uruguay by Pedro Mairal

 

The Woman from Uruguay

by Pedro Mairal

Translated by Jennifer Croft 

Il-Manifest tal-Killer by Karl Schembri

Il-Manifest tal-Killer

by Karl Schembri 

The Raptures by Jan Carson

The Raptures

by Jan Carson

The Career of Nicodemus Dyzma by Tadeusz Dolęga-Mostowicz

The Career of Nicodemus Dyzma 

by Tadeusz Dolęga-Mostowicz

(translated from the Polish by Ewa Małachoska-Pasek and Megan Thomas) 

A review

"A Saint in Swindon" by Alice Jolly

A Saint in Swindon

by Alice Jolly

A Review

Country Life: Mr Cadmus by Peter Ackroyd

Mr Cadmus 

by Peter Ackroyd

A review

Divine Comedy: "Milton in Purgatory" by Edward Vass

Divine Comedy

A review of "Milton in Purgatory" by Edward Vass

A Fairlight Modern novella

Love in the GDR: "The New Sorrows of Young W." by Ulrich Plenzdorf

Love in the GDR...

The New Sorrows of Young W. by Ulrich Plenzdorf

(translated by Romy Fursland, Pushkin Press)

Euro Vision : The Capital by Robert Menasse (translated by Jamie Bulloch)

"The Capital" by Robert Menasse

Translated by Jamie Bulloch 

A book review

Robert Menasse’s Die Hauptstadt, winner of the 2017 German Book Prize, has recently being published by MacLehose Press in an English translation by Jamie Bulloch.  In this incarnation, the novel’s title is rendered as The Capital.  This name, of course, a faithful and literal translation from the German, but I wonder whether it was also meant as a tongue-in-cheek reference to Karl Marx’s epic tome.  Indeed, political and economic theories also loom large in Menasse’s Capital, except that they are presented within the context of a zany novel about the workings of the European Commission. 

Die Hauptstadt has been described as the first great novel about the European Union.  It could well be the case.  I don’t profess to be some expert in Continental literature, of course, but the only other novel I know which uses the European Commission as a backdrop is “What happens in Brussels stays in Brussels” by the Maltese author Ġuże’ Stagno.  And that’s more a satire on Maltese politics and the Maltese representatives in the EU, than a novel on the European institutions themselves.   

Menasse’s work takes a wider view.  Its central plot element is a “Big Jubilee Project” which is being organised by the Commission as a celebration of the anniversary of its founding.   Ambitious EU official Fenia Xenapoulou hopes that this will be an occasion to improve the image of the Commission, whilst providing her with her big break.  Fenia’s Austrian assistant Martin Susman comes up with the noble idea of roping in Holocaust survivors, as a reminder that the European Union was built to ensure that Auschwitz would “never happen again”.  Unsurprisingly, as the organizers will discover to their chagrin, national interests and behind-the-scenes lobbying make the success of such an ambitious celebration unlikely.

Much as I enjoyed this novel, I must say that it took me some time to finally get immersed in it.  This is certainly not the fault of the translation – I’ve previously enjoyed Bulloch’s translations of The Mussel-Feast and Look Who’s Back, and as in those novels, The Capital is rendered in prose that is idiomatic and flowing.   I believe the problem is more with its sheer number of characters  (a recent theatrical adaptation involved 7 actors playing about 20 roles) – in the initial chapters especially, I thought that an introductory dramatis personae would have been helpful as a guide to the somewhat bewildering international cast. 

Another issue is with the proliferation of seemingly unrelated subplots involving, amongst other narrative complications: a pig on the loose in Brussels; a retired Professor preparing to deliver a final, memorable speech; a Holocaust survivor coming to terms with his impending death; a number of potential, never-fully-realised love stories and, more weirdly, a crime investigation which seems to have been borrowed from a Dan Brown thriller.  More frustratingly, some of these loose ends are never tied up.   

In other words, The Capital is a sprawling novel which could have done with some tightening.  However, its polyphonic narrative is, in itself, a good metaphor for the European Union, this patchwork of nations and cultures which, somehow, managed to build a future of hope from the cinders of a continent ravaged by war.  Indeed, this novel, despite its several comic and surreal elements, provides Menasse with the springboard to present his views on the European Union.  Despite the evident shortcomings, the bureaucracy and the backstabbing which seem to characterize the working of its institutions, especially the Commission, the central idea(l) of the EC remains a laudable one – the creation of a supra-national body to keep extreme nationalism in check, in order to ensure that the horrors of the 20th Century do no happen again.   In the age of Brexit and strident populism, its themes urgently relevant.

Kindle Edition, 432 pages

Published February 21st 2019 by MacLehose Press

***

Auschwitz – Never Again, is the mantra that underlines Menasse’s The Capital, revealing an earnest and burning message at the heart of what might seem ‘just’ a comic romp.   That is why I have no qualms about pairing this novel with a cult work by Polish composer Henryk Górecki (1933-2010) – his Third Symphony, also known as “The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs”. Premiered in April 1977, the symphony marked a clear departure from the composer’s usual dense and avant-garde style, in favour of a modal and emotionally direct language.  Its second movement sets a prayer scrawled by an 18-year old prisoner on the wall of a Gestapo camp in Zakopane.  This video is taken from the documentary Holocaust, featuring a performance recorded at Auschwitz.  Harrowing doesn’t start to describe this.  

Family Comedy : "The Altruists" by Andrew Ridker

Charity begins at home... A review of Andrew Ridker's "The Altruists"

I do not envy comic novelists.  Besides the challenges facing any novel writer, they have to elicit a smile, chuckle or smirk from their readers at regular intervals.  Then, if and when they get it right, they face the risk of seeing their work dismissed as ‘(s)light’ fare.  A case in point, in my opinion, was Andrew Sean Greer’s Less, which I greatly enjoyed and which I think really did deserve the Pulitzer, but which was slated in some quarters, including by friends and reviewers whose opinion I greatly respect.

It is therefore great news that a fresh talent has now joined the ranks of comic novelists.  Andrew Ridker was born in 1991, and his debut novel The Altruists is published later this year. Admittedly, on the cynicism/bleakness scale, this novel is closer to Richard Ford than to Andrew Sean Greer, which might make it more palatable to the literati.   Indeed, it’s already attracting glowing advance reviews.  As for me, I admired most of it, although I find it harder to actually like it.

The protagonists of The Altruists are the Alters, a Jewish middle-class family  from St Louis.  The mother, Francine, haunts the novel, despite being dead for most of it. Indeed, it is her inheritance which serves as the catalyst of the plot.  Incensed at the fact that her sixty-something professor husband Arthur has taken up a much younger lover whilst she is dying of cancer, Francine bequeaths a secret fortune to her two children, Ethan and Maggie.  Faced with the prospect of losing his girlfriend and also his heavily mortgaged house, Arthur invites his children back to St Louis for a reconciliatory weekend, hoping to convince them to bail him out.  But Ethan and Maggie have their own problems.  Ethan (whose homosexuality Arthur has never quite accepted) is out of a job, and is now living off his mother’s money in Brooklyn, whilst trying to sort out his messy love life.  On her part, Maggie is a hard-headed would-be altruist, whose obsession with causes and ideals often leads her to actually overlook the needs of the people who surround her. Although Arthur’s plans seem to be failing miserably (but quite entertainingly for us readers), they do lead the Alters to come to term with their history and to understand that they are possible more like each other than they like to think.

To be honest, I found it hard to symphatize with any of the characters, who seemed to have few, if any, redeeming features.  There are likeable rogues, but Arthur is certainly not one of them.  And his children are, frankly, chips off the old block.  This ultimately detracted from my enjoyment of the novel.  At the same time, however, there is much that is brilliant about The Altruists – it is an undeniably insightful work, it has some crisply humourous dialogue, and memorable set pieces.  I particularly enjoyed the final showdown between the Alters and Arthur’s young lover, and the Zimbabwe episode feels like something out of Evelyn Waugh.     

Hardcover, 320 pages

Expected publication: March 7th 2019 by Jonathan Cape