Two things about Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck before I get into the nitty-gritty:
1. Didn’t love the ending – the last third of the novel flagged in terms of energy.
2. …but that said, I thought a lot about this book after I finished it. A lot.
The story is set in (East) Berlin in 1986 and focuses on nineteen-year-old student, Katharina, who meets Hans on a bus. There’s an immediate connection, forged over a shared interest in music, and their bus trip turns into dinner, which turns into an intense love affair. Notably, Hans in 53-years-old and married.
It is clear from the outset that Hans is firmly in control. He speaks of previous infidelities, as well as a future with Katharina.
Without his marriage, there wouldn’t be the danger, the secrecy, the circumstances that give rise to yearning.
Katharina is well aware of the constraints – and therefore the lacking – of their relationship.
They give us just a piece of their lives, while for us they’re all there is.
When Katharina leaves Berlin briefly to study, she ‘strays’ and, after confessing to Hans, their relationship takes a cruel and punishing turn. As their union falters, so to does the GDR.
He is old enough to know how the end likes to set its roots first imperceptibly, then ever more boldly, in the present.
I don’t want to reveal too much about the plot but it must be noted that the relationship between Hans and Katharina is abusive – not only in terms of the power imbalance, but additionally physical and emotional abuse. Erpenbeck shows restraint in describing the abuse but you are under no misapprehension about what is happening. Scenes that combine Hans’s cruel behaviour with Katharina’s thoughts are remarkable –
Strange, she thinks, that time, which is invisible, becomes indirectly visible in terms of unhappiness.
I really enjoyed the descriptions of East Berlin – just enough specific detail to feel immersed without info-dumping.
When she walked on the metal grid of a U-Bahn air shaft, she could hear the clatter of a West Berlin train underfoot, then maybe feel a puff of Western air that escaped from the air shaft and mingled with the Socialist weather.
Equally well done were the descriptions of the Berlin Wall coming down – succinct and evocative.
It was three weeks till she set foot in this part of the city, which has come up overnight alongside the city she knew.
I’ve read a few reviews of this book where readers have grizzled about the fact that there is no speech punctuation and that the present-tense narration switches perspectives between Katharina and Hans mid-scene. Initially I was thrown by this but quickly picked up the structure and thought that it an ingenious way of demonstrating their enmeshment.
Erpenbeck has told a personal story and a political story in parallel. The concept is blindingly simple – Katharina and Hans’s affair played out alongside the shifts in the State – both flawed, both ageing poorly, both doomed. As unrest in the East grows, and Katharina’s friends protest and demand change, Hans – once a member of the Hitler Youth – and his attachment to keeping things the way that they have always been, shows his age. It also highlights the many forms of oppression.
What will history’s verdict be about our time?
I understand why this book has divided readers but I thought the structure – at the micro (sentence) level and at the macro (themes) level – was truly impressive.
4/5
The Ganymede is closing down… No violinist, no glissando, the piano lid down. For keeps. The waiter is uncoordinated and intrusive. And the chef, Herr Weber? Not in today, unfortunately? In the Bernese butter soup, instead of the quail’s egg, there’s a slice of hard-boiled egg, well, small mercies, says Katharina and Hans nods.
As part of the 20 Books of Summer reading challenge, I’m comparing the Belfast summer and Melburnian winter. The results for the day I finished this book (July 12): Belfast 8°-16° and Melbourne 8°-15°.