Robert Menasse

When this came out, it was hailed as the first big, literary novel to focus on the inner workings of the EU bureaucracy. Given how many clever, imaginative people there must be sitting around in Brussels offices (or recently retired from them), it seems surprising that there aren't many more such novels: one is almost forced to conclude that the work they do there is so engaging that they don't have any energy left over to satirise it...

Be that as it may, as well as a core group of officials show more mostly working in the communication department of "DG Culture" of the European Commission, Menasse's cast includes an elderly Auschwitz survivor, an Austrian pig-farmer, an emeritus economics professor, a Brussels police inspector, a professional assassin employed by the Archdiocese of Poznań, and a possibly-imaginary, possibly-symbolic pig wandering through the streets of Brussels. The conventions of narrative tell us that the stories of all these people are going to fit together sooner or later, but Menasse enjoys teasing us by allowing their paths to cross repeatedly without anything happening. It's not for nothing that Kafka's name is dropped repeatedly: Menasse is clearly a fan of the absurd, and we look for logical connections at our peril.

Naturally, this isn't just a book about the peculiarities of living in Brussels, with its constant rain, building sites, demonstrations no-one pays any attention to, inexplicable police blockades, and baffling bilingualism, nor is it merely a detailed study of the sophisticated methods international bureaucracies can deploy to resist dangerous new ideas, although it does both of those things very elegantly. What Menasse really seems to be doing here is arguing that we have lost track of the great European Idea of the 1940s, the notion that if we want a world in which we can say "never again" to Auschwitz we have to get rid of racism and nationalism and move on to a post-national democracy. The institutions of the EU are arranged in such a way that it is almost impossible for anyone to take a decision that goes against the self-interest of any of the member states, and it often seems as though the only truly radical things the EU has ever done have been those needed to serve the prevailing ideology of liberal capitalism and the free market. Obviously there are holes to pick in this: the founders of the predecessor organisations of the EU were arguably more interested in industrial competition with the US than in preserving the postwar peace, and no-one ever seems to have come up with a workable way to create truly democratic European institutions. But I'm sure that Menasse is right in identifying the legacy of Auschwitz as the thing that is at the core of the way large numbers of Europeans — especially of the immediate post-war generations — have looked at the European Idea, and the reason why so many of us view the rise in populist nationalism in the last decades with such horror. But he's clearly also right about the difficulty of communicating that idea to people who've come to see "Europe" negatively.

An interesting and very clever book, in which I recognised a lot of types and professional manoeuvres I'm very familiar with(!), but also a rather sad and frustrating one. He ends with "à suivre", but it's not at all obvious at present where the story should go next, either in fiction or in real life. show less

The officials in Robert Menasse's latest big Brussels novel are working with Albania and other West Balkan states to prepare them for EU membership, but some important Member States are blocking progress for their own domestic reasons. And the Albanians themselves are a bit miffed about having to sack all their corrupt judges while "respectable" MS like Poland and Hungary are busy turning the Rule of Law into a bad joke. But all this is fiction, of course, any connection with real life is show more purely coincidental...

A lot of the action this time takes place in Albania, mostly in and around the office of the Prime Minister, "ZK", an engagingly offbeat ex-basketball star who is trying to recapture ground from his nationalist opponents by identifying himself with the national hero, Skanderbeg. This is mostly fun, but it occasionally feels as though we're being taken through a condensed version of the complete works of Ismail Kadare, touching on all the key things we are supposed to know about Albanian history, from Enver Hoxha and the Kosovo war to sworn virgins, blood-feuds and the Kanun.

Like its precursor, Die Hauptstadt, this is a big novel with a lot of characters and parallel plot lines, and it feels as though Menasse may have been caught unawares by some major world events that caused him to shift the direction of the climax of the story when it was already half-written. It gives him a powerful symbolic ending, with Europe's political leaders sailing off into the sunset on a broken-down, epidemic-stricken cruise ship they have to share with a lot of rescued refugees. This works well, except that it seems to leave a lot of his characters and plot lines somewhat crudely tied up: one character is unceremoniously pushed off a cliff when no longer required, others simply drop out of sight. And there are two detectives we follow through most of the book who end up having to watch as someone else solves the main crime story...

An enjoyable read and a thoughtful book with some sensible things to say about politics and Europe, but maybe not quite as joined-up a novel as it might have been had the world treated all of us a little better over the past few years. show less

Nach dem Lesen dieses Romans ist eines jedenfalls klar: Brüssel ist Europas Hauptstadt, hier findet man die VertreterInnen aller Nationen, die gegen- und miteinander versuchen, die Gegenwart und Zukunft unseres Kontinents zu gestalten. Doch so unterschiedlich die Menschen dort auch sind, auf irgendeine Weise sind sie miteinander verbunden, jetzt oder durch ihre Vorfahren in der Vergangenheit. Davon handelt dieses Buch, vom Leben in dieser Hauptstadt und den zumeist unsichtbaren Fäden, die show more die BewohnerInnen untereinander verknüpfen.
Viele Geschichten werden hier erzählt: die des Kommissars Brunfaut, dem die Untersuchung eines Mordfalles entzogen wird; die des ehemaligen Auschwitzgefangenen David de Vriend, der in ein Altenheim umzieht; die der EU-Beamtin Fenia, die sich strafversetzt fühlt und zum ersten Mal ein Gefühl verspürt, an das sie nie glaubte; und sechs, sieben weitere Personen, die alle auf ihre Art ihre Nationen vertreten, gleichzeitig aber so europäisch sind, wie man es nur sein kann.
Robert Menasse erzählt in einem locker-leichten Plauderton mit viel (auch schwarzem) Humor und serviert einem praktisch so nebenbei viele der Probleme unserer Zeit mit teilweise umfangreichen Analysen: Flüchtlingskrise, Vergangenheitsbewältigung, die Ökonomisierung aller Lebensbereiche, zunehmende Medialisierung, Werteverlust usw. Das Ganze meist mit jeder Menge feiner Ironie und leichter Spöttelei, sodass ich mich trotz der ernsten Themen häufig gut amüsierte.
Einen kleinen Haken hat das Buch jedoch, wie ich finde. Durch die vielen ProtagonistInnen wechseln die Erzählstränge zwangsweise häufig und auch schnell. Liest man den Roman zügig durch, dürfte das kein Problem sein. Zieht es sich jedoch etwas hin (wie es bei mir der Fall war), kommt kein richtiger Erzählfluss auf. Die Figuren wurden mir nicht vertraut genug, sodass ich nahtlos wieder einsteigen konnte - häufig musste ich zurückblättern, wer wer war. Trotzdem war es eine unterhaltsame und stellenweise auch erhellende Lektüre. show less

You don’t get very far into Robert Menasse’s “The Capital” before pigs start to appear.

A pig is seen rattling around in downtown Bruxelles, the European capital. A wealthy Austrian pig farmer pressures his brother, a bureaucrat in the EU hierarchy, to lobby for new subsidies for pig farmers. A senior trade bureaucrat is fending off pressure from pig farmers to eliminate agricultural subsidies to buoy European pig prices.

A man is murdered at the Hotel Atlas and all trace of evidence show more is “disappeared” by authorities. A concentration camp survivor is on the loose. A professor of economics is tapped to advise on Europe’s future. A bureaucrat is tapped to advise on the best means to celebrate the EU’s Jubilee year, but the idea is snuffed out by vigilant cronies.

Then there are the metaphorical pigs: the bureaucrats eating at the trough of a fat European government. The police units ever present on the streets of Bruxelles. The capitalist pigs at the trough of subsidies. And not the least of it: the PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain) the source of Europe’s financial crisis.

Menasse sees little hope for the confederation as long as territorial imperatives cloud the benefits of unity. For one thing, what good is an organization founded on collective guilt, especially when the last of the survivors disappear?

The “Never again!” mantra of the continentalists rings hollow when every sign is on the horizon of a repetition of the dire events of the 1930’s and 1940’s. Nationalism, the old pig on the block, is back.

At every turn the reader (intended to be a European?) is asked to question what it means to be a European. It doesn’t say “European” on their passport. Having sex isn’t a peculiarly European pleasure any more than drinking wine, or beer, or attending a football match. Nor birth. Not death. Not religious affiliation. Nor surveillance.

“Why bother?” Menasse seems to be asking along with a significant number of minority of voices in the UK. What value is a confederation whose sole raison d’être is economic growth when growth is never going to keep up with demand and growth means despoiling the planet?

Well, for one thing if the government in Bruxelles is corrupt so too are the national governments. Moreover, the national governments duplicate other services that automation has clearly shown can be done by a machine. In truth, Europeans are paying too much for government. And their governments are too slow. So are ours on the other side of the Atlantic.

For another thing, the trading players in this universe are China, Japan, and the United States. Going nationalist is suicidal in traditional trade talks.

What is the metaphorical “capital” of the European experiment in continental government? At the moment it’s in the trash can Along with Karl Marx’ “das Kapital” and Thomas Piketty’s “Capital.” There is no room for logic, rationalism, or compassion in this capital.

If anything this planet needs less governance and more cooperation. Yes, I’m speaking of the impending environmental disaster of global warming. The many millions more of environmental refugees on the horizon.

Just to test my thesis I asked my Canadian wife: “If you could have smaller government, lower taxes, and greater access to international trade, would you agree to annex Canada to the United States?”

Her answer: “No way! Over my dead body!” The defence rests, your Honour.

Of that and much more our governments and our voters are petrified. They are all worried about it in France as they are in Ohio or Pennsylvania or the suburbs of Toronto. They too are the “pigs” that frighten us in the night.

The biggest pig in the room? Why, of course, it is us. And if you don’t remember why I urge you to go back and read George Orwell’s “Animal Farm.” show less