Currents Summer 2021 Vol 37, No. II | Page 26

Discovering German Literature

Discovering German Literature in Translation

Over the lockdown , I stumbled across a list that Deutche Welle compiled online a few years ago : the top 100 English-translated German novels , going back to 1901 . It seemed like a great source to learn more about Germany and its contemporary literature , so I dived in .
The first two books that I wanted to read on the list were by Austrian authors : The Wall ( 1968 ) by Marlen Haushofer , and A Whole Life ( 2015 ) by Robert Seethaler . Both novels are about isolation , solitude , and nature — favorite subjects of mine ever since I became a parent and my dreams turned to being alone in a cabin in the woods , surrounded by silence .
The Wall is considered to be Haushofer ’ s greatest work , though sadly she passed away just two years after its publication . Since 1968 , over one million copies have been sold , it has been translated into 18 languages , and , in 2012 , a brilliant film adaptation of the novel was released ( available on Amazon Prime as Die Wand , the original German title of the novel .)
A Whole Life , by Robert Seethaler , 2015 ( English translation by Charlotte Collins , 2015 )
The Wall is dystopian fiction : an unnamed woman ’ s first-person account of being trapped alone in the Austrian mountains after some kind of catastrophic event has occurred in the world . Despite the dramatic premise , it is a quiet novel , an introspective story of daily survival and what we need and cling to when everything else has been stripped away . The narrator lives with a dog , a cow , and a cat , and describes the physical and psychological challenges to her survival . There is an underpinning of doom , a low note of tension that stays with you as a reader and propels you to keep turning the page , while at the same time imagining the mountains and the birds and the sound of the wind in the long grass .
A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler was published in 2015 . The novel is in third person and has a simpler , gentler narrative style that contrasts with the grand beauty of the mountains . We are told the story of the whole life of Andreas Egger , a hard-working , simple man , born around 1898 , with a love of the mountains and a difficult life . The translation is excellent , flowing and readable and keeping the lyrical tone while avoiding sentimentality and gushing . There is so much emotion — both joy and grief — beneath the surface , and for such a short novel , it ’ s a thoroughly satisfying read .
The Wall , by Marlen Haushofer , 1968 ( English translation by Shaun Whiteside , 1990 )
In both of these novels , I see ties to the German Romantic concept of Waldeinsamkeit , which can be translated as the joy of being in solitude in a forest . Both novels are deeply connected to the land and the divine sensory pleasure we can find in nature . In these pandemic times , for me at least , the novels served as a reminder that we can find solace and comfort in nature when so many other areas of joy — friends , family , travel , eating together — are out of our reach for now .
Michaela A .
26 The Clubs within Our Club