Kairos

Winner of the 2024 International Booker Prize, Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck (1967) offers much to ponder. Set against the backdrop of the communist German Democratic Republic (DDR) during the late 1980s and early 1990s, the story revolves around the relationship between Hans and Katharina. She is 19, on the brink of discovering the world DDR; he is older than her father, with a family and a career in writing and broadcasting. If the 34-year age gap were not unsettling enough, Hans is also unsympathetic, has a past in the Hitler Jugend, and speaks approvingly of the Soviet regime.

The story is fast-paced, with virtually every sentence introducing new information and perspectives shifting within paragraphs. Unfortunately, it never truly took off for me. By centring on Katharina, Erpenbeck crafts a narrative of highs and lows in her love for Hans. While their affair begins rather enigmatically, it eventually fell flat for me. I would have preferred the author to adopt a broader, more societal perspective, as I appreciated her sceptical attitude towards stereotypes. My favourite scenes revolved around the contrasts between life in the East and the West, such as Katharina’s visit to her grandmother in Cologne.

Who would have guessed that hell is lined with tacky carpeting, ancient and splotchy, and that the damned standing for all eternity in front of the shelves full of video cassettes have only backs, and that leashes, whips and gags are what man most deeply desires? Has the woman at the counter with her dyed hair ever been a child? Is that why there’s a box of candies next to the bowl full of condoms?

This didn't feel like my thing. In theory I appreciate mirroring the relationship with the background events around the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of East and West Germany, but in practice Hans is outright repulsive and Katharina is frustrating to read about after a while. I get that it's abusive, and victims often end up like Katharina, but it's still just painful to keep going on with and there is significantly more nuance in the way the setting is drawn than in the depoction of the relationship.

I appreciate the view of East Germany before the fall of the Wall, the snippets of life and how they compare and contrast with the West. It gives a feel for living under the socialist government—at least in the context of people who are on its good side and doing well. The idea that Katharina had never seen a homeless person until she visited West Germany was mind-blowing.

I feel like the epilogue weakened things a bit, although in some respects it probably needed to do so. It feels like an ending twist of "actually East Germany sucked and Hans was also struggling" which probably could have been handled with more grace. The general framing of Katharina reading through old documents feels unhelpful, as it establishes little of the perspective she's viewing the stoey from. She has a husband who is barely mentioned and... That's it? She may as well not be a character beyond the pages in the boxes.

Generally I think this was a well-told story that I just didn't enjoy. There are so many things that just kind of grate on me, but I also have to admit they either don't matter or are well done, just not to my taste.

This is a love story with power dynamics that will make you angry - an older, married man with a much younger women, the former often manipulating the latter. But all of this happens in the context of 1980s Berlin, just before (and then during) the fall of the Wall. The writing is great, which makes me wonder how much we should thank the translator (Michael Hofmann).

There are moments in this book that remind me of China Miéville's The City and the City. Here's one:

"Through a tunnel and then up to the platform, and now she's suddenly on the other side of the steel barrier. She knows what it looks like when seen from the East. You're almost forced to look at it when you stand on the eastbound platform, waiting for the train heading towards Strausberg or Erkner or Ahrensfelde. But now all of the sudden what was inside is outside, and what was ordinary is now cut off from her and no longer visible. Suddenly everything is inverted, topsy-turvy, now she's behind the picture, behind what was once the surface of some unreachable beyond. The white line, a foot and a half from the edge of the platform, is not to be breached before the train has come to a complete stop, says the voice on the PA. Katharina and all those others waiting follow the rule, they don't cross the line, they even prefer to stand in the middle of the platform, On the short side of the station the glass facade cuts off the top of the building from the air outside, which in principle is still Eastern air, but because it gives access to the West is sort of Western air too, and outside the glass facade is an iron platform, where soldiers patrol back and forth with rifles on their backs, their silhouettes clearly visible. Behind the steel barrier that runs parallel to the train track, and that on this side too is a steel barrier, the S-Bahn prusumably continues to run, in the familiar way, towards Strausberg or Erkner or Ahresfelde. Or not? Does the East, which so far has been her element, cease to exist the moment she can no longer see it? Has she, Katharina, displaced it from present to past with those few strides to the other side of Friedrichstrasse station? Or is this gray station endowed with the power to hold two different sorts of time, two competing presents, two everyday realities, one serving as the other's netherworld? But then where is she, when she stands on the borderline? Is it called no-man's-land because someone wandering around in it no longer has any idea who he is?" (67-68)