I had never read anything by Arno Geiger, but after reading positive reviews of Unter der Drachenwand I really wanted wanted to read the book. Unfortunately, no copy was to be found (yet) on this side of the pond, and I was unwilling to pay a small fortune to have one shipped from Germany. But Bowdoin College did have a copy of Geiger's 2005 novel Es geht uns gut in its excellent library and it turned out to be a wonderful introduction to this talented Austrian writer.
The novel, which won the very first Deutscher Buchpreis in 2005, is a family chronicle which also follows closely 2oth century Austrian history. 36-year-old Phillip Erlach has inherited his grandparent's mansion outside of of Vienna as the novel opens in spring of 2001. The house is in disrepair and filled with momentos of his grandparents and mother. The novel alternates chapters describing Phillip's comical adventures in home improvement with chapters about his grandparents and parent dealing with single days from 1938 to 1989 - days which also correspond to important dates in Austrian history. If Es geht uns gut is a modern day Buddenbrooks, describing the slow demise of a family, then Phillip is Hanno Buddenbrooks - if Hanno had survived beyond boyhood. Phillip is a dreamer, a procrastinator, by most measures a complete failure. Yet he has an artistic temperament - which he shares with the author. Phillip is singularly incurious about his family history, but the house, its objects, its ghosts, draws him in, along with the reader. The opening sentence of the book captures Phillip's ambivalence: "Er hat nie daüber nachgedacht, was es heisst, dass die Toten uns überdauern."
The historical chapters, in which we are introduced to Phillip's maternal grandparents and parents, are written in present tense. For the most part, we learn about each character through extended inner monologues. There is the grandfather Richard Sterk, a conservative politician who despises the Nazis, navigating the new reality of Hitler's Anschluss. Richard is also navigating his marriage to the strong-willed Alma, while carrying on a hot sexual relationship with the family's maid. (Geiger is the rare writer who can write well about sex.) Richard is also somewhat fearful of his two children, Otto and Ingrid. Jump forward to April 1945 as the Third Reich is defeated. We see Phillip's father Peter Ehrlich as a 15-year-old Hitler Youth sent along with other teenagers on a suicide mission to stop the Soviet tanks entering Vienna. This is a brutal, harrowing chapter; Peter somehow survives with a bullet through his shoulder.
But where Geiger really excels is getting in the head of his female characters - Ingrid, Philips mother, and his grandmother Alma. In the Chapter December 31, 1970 we see Ingrid as a young physician having just spent all night caring for a dying patient and returning home to care for her two children and husband. The Womens' Movement is just beginning seep into popular culture, and Ingrid is out of sorts trying to juggle a demanding job with housework. She resents Peter, her husband, who spends his time in the basement tinkering with useless inventions, leaving the bulk of the childcare and housework to her:
"Er hält sich in ihr eine Putzfrau, eine Köchin, eine Gouvernante für die Kinder und ab und zu eine Geliebte, die aber nicht befriedigt wird.""
But Geiger also writes about everyday events with precision and empathy. Any parent who after a long day puts "young children to bed can appreciate how physical exhaustion is sometimes rewarded with moments of joy:
"Sie seift den Kindnern die Köpfe ein und spült ihnen das feine, leichte Haar, wie es schon ihre eigene Mutter gemacht hat. [..] Die Kinder stossen ihre schrillen Lacher aus, und weil Ingrid ziemlich geschlaucht ist und weil sie von der Kälte ein wenig Kopfweh hat, überredet sie die beiden zu einem Wettbewerb, wer länger untertauchen kann. Die Kinder halten sich die Nasen zu und saugen auf Fertig!Los! mit aufgerissenen Mündern die Luft ein. Ehe sie mit den Hintern zur Badewannenmitte rutschen und mit den Oberkörpern unter Wasser fallen, kneifen sie fest die Augen zu. Ihre Gesichter mit den trompeterdicken Wangen sehen unter Wasser schlierig aus, verschwommend durch die Seife, persepektivisch vergrössert. Ingrid denkt an Fische, die man unter einer Brücke schwimmen sieht."
By the next chapter ("30 Juni, 1978) Ingrid is dead - a victim of a diving accident in the Danube.
Also impressive is Alma's extended monologue (interior or exterior - it's not entirely true) as she tries to break through to her husband Richard in the late stages of Alzheimer's. Geiger has written movingly about his own father's advanced dementia in his memoir "The Old King in his Exile".
Es geht uns gut is an impressive achievement. I was delighted to learn that it is available in English translation (by Maria Poglitsch Bauer) as We Are Doing Fine.
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