Who can explain the mysteries of human attraction? That question is at the heart of the Swiss writer Peter Stamm's 2009 novel Sieben Jahre. An English version - Seven Years - translated by Michael Hofmann, was recently published.
Alexander is an attractive and successful Munich architect married to the stunningly beautiful and highly creative Sonja - also an architect. They are the perfect couple - or seem to be. Alex, however, is missing something, and develops a relationship with the plain, rather simple-minded Polish girl Iwona. Iwona is the exact opposite of Alexander: a devout Catholic, utterly devoid of guile or irony, a lover of kitsch. But she in some ways seems more real to Alex than than does his wife, who, like the LeCorbusier buildings she admires, is somewhat distant and sterile. Alex takes sadistic pleasure in tormenting Iwona for her total devotion and love for him. At the same time, he envies her for the depth of her feeling - something he is incapable of.
"Es war nicht Lust, die mich an sie band, es war ein Gefühl, das ich seit meiner Kindheit nicht mehr empfunden hatte, eine Mischung aus Geborgenehit und Freiheit. Es war als vergehe die Zeit nicht, wenn ich mit ihr zusammen war, aber gerade dadurch bekamen diese Momente ihr Gewicht."i
(It wasn't lust that tied me to her, it was a feeling that I hadn't had since my childhood, a mixture of emotional security and freedom. It felt like time stood still when I was with her, but that made these moments meaningful.)
There is also an interesting sociological component to the relationship that Peter Stamm never really explores. Like Iwona, Alex comes from a humble, lower-middle class background, and he doesn't feel like he belongs in the sophisticated, wealthy society of Sonja. WIth Iwona he doesn't have to pretend. But that doesn't stop him from looking down on Iwona for her appalling taste, even as he feels nothing but contempt for the pretentiousness of Sonja's affluent and sophisticated familiy. Alexander is too much of a coward to accept the love of either woman.
Sieben Jahre is in many ways an utterly conventional novel, narrated by the narcissist Alexander in simple, short - almost dull - sentences. But, inexplicably, like Alex's attraction to Iwona, it is nearly impossible to resist.
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