'Next World Novella' - Matthias Politycki

Jeanne recently suggested that maybe I would benefit from writing some terser, quicker reviews to get me back on track with blogging. I took her advice, writing shorter reviews of a few books I didn't enjoy and a few quick thoughts on books I really liked, before heading back to a longer format feeling really like I'd woken up a little bit more. And now they and some of the longer reviews are just about ready to share (I've been so lazy about finishing them up). First up, 'Next World Novella' by Matthias Politycki, the fourth title from Peirine Press:

While I still think a lot about the third title from Peirine Press ‘A Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman’ (which I know I haven’t written about yet, but hopefully I will soon) I put ‘Next World Novella’ aside and its contents very nearly disappeared from my mind. It’s not that I didn’t like reading the book, but despite offering many prompts for further examination ‘Next World Novella’ did not generate any sparks in my brain. We just didn’t make a good pair.

Politycki’s story focuses on Hinrich, a posturing academic, who likes to think himself an intellectual, a ladies man and the centre of his wife’s entire life. Hinrich awakes one morning to find his wife slumped dead over an old manuscript of his that she was editing and her death draws him to reminisce about their life together, without ever really finding fault with his own behaviour. It’s a story I’m sure anyone who has dabbled in lit fiction will have come across before.

Stories about characters like Hinrich (at least the ones I’ve read) tend to be written with some implied indulgence of the academic’s behaviour, even at the same time that they report his true state of ridiculousness. In contrast, Politycki’s novella gives Doro, Hinrich’s wife, a voice and allows her to truly criticise her husband. While he is initially devastated by her death he spots an angry final note at the end of this manuscript (his long forgotten novella), which prompts him to read all of Doro’s comments while she rests dead on their couch. Doro’s voice can be heard finally criticising her husband’s behaviour, even as she escapes to the other side.

The part of the novel that I found most interesting was the text of Hinrich’s novella. The translator Anthea Bell appears to have deliberately used colloquial English words like ‘cool’, ‘pet’ and ‘fag’ to represent the fact that (I assume) in the original German Politycki has given Hinrich’s writing a self-conscious, pulpy narrative style, that projects his failed attempt to approximate the casual confidence of someone who has lived a roguish life as part of the traditional, masculine bar scene. Hinrich’s writing is terrible and falls well short of producing an authentic narrative voice. Instead his narrator sounds like someone who has heard people talking about these kinds of experiences and using these kinds of word, but can’t put them together in quite the right way:

‘Life at the Maus was never boring. What with the place being full of alcoholics, jazz trumpeters, philosophers and other such colourful figures, and from two or three in the morning everyone talking to everyone up and down the entire bar. In case of doubt there was always Mutt. Because Hanni, as cheerily as she joked, cursed or knocked back tequilas, was basically the opposite of flirtatious. If someone made the slightest move behind her back, suggesting never mind the peanuts and pretzels, he could fancy nibbling something very different, she’d immediately swing round, brown eyes with those tiny gold flecks in them putting on a fireworks display, hand on hip, asking so we could all hear, ‘Who was it wanted a nibble, then?’ And when someone had ordered nuts or cigarettes, reckoning he was in with a serious chance, he’d often take his disappointment out on Mutt, Hanni’s dog, a mongrel who regularly hung out with us. Did the old boy know who the kicks he often got under the table at dawn were really meant for?’

His novella only serves to highlight that Hinrich is a phoney and draws attention to how unreliable his version of events may be, once Doro’s notes instruct the reader to connect the novella with real life events. And while the stylistic experiment of writing in the voice of a very bad writer to make points about his character didn’t exactly add to the pleasure of my reading experience (I’m not fond enough of style to enjoy technique more than an entertaining reading experience) it’s the one point of interest that really stayed with me after I’d finished reading.

A book where a neglected female character gets a voice (even if it is posthumous) sounds just like the kind of book I should want to analyse, but I’m afraid I don’t feel compelled to dig into ‘next World Novella’. I feel that Politycki made a fantastic choice in giving Doro a voice. Her voice becomes stronger as the novel continues, creating a real personality, which reminds readers that the dead body they are returned to again and again had feelings and aspirations. However, I felt distanced from Doro because a great deal of Hinrich’s remembrances of her, involved him reflecting on her detailed construction of a personal after life, one which wasn’t personally interesting to me.

Lots of other bloggers got something more out of this novella and my reasons for not connecting with it are all about my own interests, so I’ll refer you to:

Iris on Books
cardigan verity
Savidge Reads
Amy Reads