In September, Hubby and I spent a fortnight back-packing in Europe to celebrate my early retirement. Our whistle-stop tour took in Budapest, Bratislava, Vienna, Saltzberg, Munich, Frankfurt and Cologne and provided many memorable moments, some planned (Oktoberfest – or Blackpool on acid as I now call it) and some unplanned (floods in Central Europe). And what did I take to read on the train-journeys between destinations? One book in my ‘to-read’ pile seemed like the obvious choice: Kairos by German author Jenny Erpenbeck, winner of this year’s International Booker Prize.
The main action unfolds in the late 1980s / early 1990s in a still-divided Germany. Katharina and Hans meet by chance on a bus in East Berlin. She’s nineteen years old, works for the state publishing company, and hopes to study design at college. He’s a forty-something writer, married, knows Katharina’s mother, and is 10 years older than her father. They go for a coffee, go back to his apartment (his wife and son are away staying with friends), drink wine, listen to music, go out to eat, return to his, and…you can guess the rest.
The next day Hans takes Katharina to a good restaurant and spells out his “terms and conditions”. “We will only see each other occasionally…I can only be a luxury for you, because I am a married man…I’m also in a relationship with a woman who works in radio…And you can’t expect any sort of public acknowledgement.” Katharina agrees. Well, she’s young and in love. (Her mother is more circumspect: “Yes, he’s good-looking…and has a brain. But there are always women around him. Mind yourself.”)
The story is structured in two parts or “boxes”, book-ended by a prologue and an epilogue and split by an “intermezzo”. Box 1 charts the first 18 months of their relationship; Box 2 the next four years. At the end of Box 1, Hans discovers Katharina has slept with a colleague (that’s not a spoiler by the way; it’s in the blurb on the book cover). And boy, does he make her suffer in Box 2!
He’s hurt but can’t claim the moral ground: after all he’s cheating on his wife AND his mistress. He behaves as if he can, though, and, more annoyingly, so does Katharina. She believes “the greatest gift Hans can give isn’t forgiveness but a thorough inspection of the wreckage.” (Her mother, as before, knows the score: “Hans is much older, he has more experience. It’s not nice of him not simply to have forgiven you.” Does Katharina listen? Erm…no.)
The problem is that Han’s “inspection of the wreckage” continues for four years. FOUR YEARS. Long before the end of Box 2, I wanted to slap them both: Hans for being so up him-self and Katharina for not telling him to get stuffed.
If you clocked the dates the action takes place, and know your history, you’ll have realised Hans and Katharina are living through the final years of East Germany. Their increasingly dysfunctional relationship is a metaphor for a country in the process of demolishing itself. I acknowledge the power of the allegory, and yet, and yet…it’s difficult to truly warm to a book if you dislike the main characters.
The novel takes its name from Zeus’s youngest son, Kairos, the god of opportunity or of “fortunate moments”. “Was it a fortunate moment, then, when she…first met Hans?” Katharina asks herself 30 years later (in the Prologue). That’s a resounding No from me; I suspect Katharina’s mother might agree.
Rating: * Not for me (but worth a try).
whatcathyread 