by Julia Franck
Here is a review and summary from the blog Dialog International:
“Stettin, 1945. In a bombed-out apartment, an eight-year old boy secretly watches as his mother is repeatedly raped by Russian soldiers. She then takes the boy by the hand as they make their way onto a packed train headed in the direction of Berlin. When the train makes a stop, the mother hands the boy the suitcase and tells him to wait for her on the platform while she uses the restroom. The mother never returns.
This is how Julia Franck begins her terrific novel Die Mittagsfrau (“The Noonday Witch”).
Why did the mother abandon her young son? The rest of the novel takes us back to Helene’s (the young mother) early childhood in Bautzen and follows her through a tragic love affair in Berlin and the unhappy marriage that brought her to Stettin. The novel is a psychological portrait of a young woman, but at the same time psychogramm of German history. Helene is a half-Jew, and her personal history is inextricably bound together with that of her country. In the end, the reader achieves some measure of understanding for Helene’s unforgivable act.
I found the early childhood scenes in Bautzen – the period just before the Great War – especially effective. Helene’s mother Selma grieved for her four stillborn sons; she was incapable of feeling love for her two daughters. Helene and her older sister compensate for this absence of love through an incestous relationship with each other. When in 1914 their beloved father leaves to fight in the war, Selma is driven over the edge into madness and the young girls are left to their own devices to survive. Selma’s mental illness casts a shadow on both girls: Martha succumbs to addiction and Helene retreats into silence and passivity.”
“Stettin, 1945. In a bombed-out apartment, an eight-year old boy secretly watches as his mother is repeatedly raped by Russian soldiers. She then takes the boy by the hand as they make their way onto a packed train headed in the direction of Berlin. When the train makes a stop, the mother hands the boy the suitcase and tells him to wait for her on the platform while she uses the restroom. The mother never returns.
This is how Julia Franck begins her terrific novel Die Mittagsfrau (“The Noonday Witch”).
Why did the mother abandon her young son? The rest of the novel takes us back to Helene’s (the young mother) early childhood in Bautzen and follows her through a tragic love affair in Berlin and the unhappy marriage that brought her to Stettin. The novel is a psychological portrait of a young woman, but at the same time psychogramm of German history. Helene is a half-Jew, and her personal history is inextricably bound together with that of her country. In the end, the reader achieves some measure of understanding for Helene’s unforgivable act.
I found the early childhood scenes in Bautzen – the period just before the Great War – especially effective. Helene’s mother Selma grieved for her four stillborn sons; she was incapable of feeling love for her two daughters. Helene and her older sister compensate for this absence of love through an incestous relationship with each other. When in 1914 their beloved father leaves to fight in the war, Selma is driven over the edge into madness and the young girls are left to their own devices to survive. Selma’s mental illness casts a shadow on both girls: Martha succumbs to addiction and Helene retreats into silence and passivity.”
Facts:
English title: The Blindness of the Heart
Original title: Die Mittagsfrau
Published: 2007
