lokroma reviewed The undertaking by Audrey Magee
Review of 'The undertaking' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
The Undertaking is set in World War II Germany and Russia. Peter, who is a German soldier stationed in Russia, meets his wife Katherina through the mail and they are married by proxy. He wants a reason to go home on leave and having a wife gives him one. When they meet, they find they like each other quite well and are soon in love.
Katharina lives with her parents in Berlin at the time when Jews are being routed from their homes and sent East, and their valuables confiscated by the Germans for themselves. The Spinells are untroubled by what's going on and feel entitled to the luxury apartment that's been given to them, along with all of its contents, including clothing. Unfortunately for Katharina, she's too heavy to wear the clothes, except for a coat that she somehow manages to cram into. The mysterious work that Mr. Spinell …
The Undertaking is set in World War II Germany and Russia. Peter, who is a German soldier stationed in Russia, meets his wife Katherina through the mail and they are married by proxy. He wants a reason to go home on leave and having a wife gives him one. When they meet, they find they like each other quite well and are soon in love.
Katharina lives with her parents in Berlin at the time when Jews are being routed from their homes and sent East, and their valuables confiscated by the Germans for themselves. The Spinells are untroubled by what's going on and feel entitled to the luxury apartment that's been given to them, along with all of its contents, including clothing. Unfortunately for Katharina, she's too heavy to wear the clothes, except for a coat that she somehow manages to cram into. The mysterious work that Mr. Spinell does for a German bigwig is apparently the source of their good fortune. A cool, understated quality to the family conversations about what's happening to the Jews serves to amplify the utter horror of it.
Peter and his unit are sent to the siege of Stalingrad where his confidence in the rightness of the German mission starts to crumble. The battle scenes are detailed and brutal and their emotional impact contrasts with the odd lack of emotion in the Spinell family back home.
I thought this book was both powerful and numbing -- often difficult to read, but impossible to put down. Magee goes back and forth from battle front to home front, exploring the denial that lives in both places and that makes it possible for soldiers and citizens to survive. Without that denial there can't be war after all.
I love this writing. It is masterful and fast paced, and I'm not sure how she does it. Certainly the clipped dialog contributes, but there's another quality that I can't quite articulate. None of the characters is particularly bright or appealing, yet they drew me into their lives, and I urgently needed to know how those lives would play out.
After reading The Colony, and now The Undertaking, I'm convinced that Magee is one of our best living writers. She has published only 2 books, and there were 8 years between them. I think she's in her mid fifties, but there is not a lot of biography on her, so I'm not sure. I would love her to step up her writing pace, but if that's the time required to craft such exquisite novels, I'll just have to wait.