[ book tip by Incentives ] The Long Shadows of the Past

Constantin Göttfert is a sensitive storyteller who gives his characters the room they need to unload their weighty stories. The subject of “Steiners Geschichte” (Steiner’s Story) is a complicated and profound one. The main characters, Ina and Martin, meet as young teachers and slowly become a couple. The root cause of their hesitation about dating is Ina’s family history, which keeps intruding into her personal life. Ina comes from a family of Carpathian Germans who were expelled from their hometowns in Eastern Europe after World War II and had to start over from nothing on the March plains of eastern Austria. Steiner, the family patriarch who has spent his whole life mourning the loss of his family farm, reacts with stubborn silence and withdrawal into the past. The relationship’s prospects stand on shaky ground. Shortly after becoming pregnant, Ina sets out to find her heritage across the border and Martin tries to follow. But the pair have a tortuous journey ahead of them, for in order to build a future they must first come to terms with the past.

Any attempt to find one’s roots seems destined to be an odyssey requiring commitment and an open mind. The territory of “home” is always demarcated by some kind of frontier, a role for which the March River is quite apt. The river, which once served as the border with the Communist Eastern Bloc, holds twofold significance. Beyond symbolizing life and the flow of human relationships, the March come to epitomize the stalemate that for decades governed life between the hostile countries. The subject is a formidable one but, as the novel attests, Göttfert has certainly done his homework, consulting associations of exiled Sudeten Germans and visiting the settlers who replaced them in the regions they fled. Göttfert does not favor one side or the other, but attempts to make sense of the issue. Through that attempt, he has created an arresting novel.

Abridged version of the review by Bernd Schuchter, November 2014. English translation by Jake Schneider.
Full German text: http://www.literaturhaus.at/index.php?id=10498

[ book info ] Göttfert, Constantin: Steiners Geschichte. (original language: German) C. H. Beck Verlag, 2014 . ISBN: 978-3-406-66757-2.