Hugo Loetscher (1939–2009)

‘No, the people of Mesopotamia had never had it so good.’ So begins this curious parable from Zurich writer Hugo Loetscher (1929–2009), which uses the Biblical story of Noah building his Ark as a metaphor for economic bubbles and social mobility. Not the most obvious idea, it must be conceded.

To a Brit, that opening line cannot fail to recall Harold Macmillan's famous speech of 1957, though the internet tells me that it was borrowed from an earlier Democratic Party slogan in the US. show more Either way, the reference is clearly deliberate. The import of the comparison, on the other hand, is less clear to me. Something is apparently being said about boom-and-bust cycles, and the relationship between economic growth and the idea of future catastrophe, but – perhaps owing to my economic illiteracy – I found it hard to untangle what Loetscher was trying to get across, despite what should be a very relevant modern context. (The book was written in 1967.)

At times, Loetscher's view of social change seems decidedly conservative – there is an ambivalent portrait of the migrant workers, with their backward culture, that flood into Mesopotamia to fill the manual labour jobs that locals won't do, and he seems wryly critical too of the gender fluidity of younger generations (‘the pickup line for young men these days was, “Do you bathe in the Tigris or Euphrates?”’). He also takes lots of good-humoured swipes at such late-capitalist phenomena as insurance scams, the craze for antiques, fashionable haute cuisine, tourism, and psychiatry (‘given his exaggerated fear of water, Noah must have been a great bedwetter as a child’). The tone is dry and subtle, but it's not a flattering depiction of modernity.

Noah said, ‘I took a good look at society and really had nothing to say but: Let it rain.’

Samuel P. Willcocks's translation is fluent and unobtrusive (despite a couple of minor infelicities) and it makes the text sound perfectly modern. Overall this is another fascinating and very welcome entry on Seagull Books' Swiss List, which is every bit as good as the better-known Swiss Literature Series from Dalkey Archive Press, though ‘better-known’ in this case is a decidedly relative term. show less

Loetscher is a Swiss author who typically writes with an eye on the ironies and absurdities of contemporary society and human behavior in general. I'd previously read a collection by him (Der Buckel) which has some brilliantly memorable moments. Noah, which is an earlier work, didn't impress me quite as much in terms of its execution, but it is nevertheless an effective and trenchant satire of the post-war economic boom in Europe.

He sets the story in pre-Diluge Mesopotamia as Noah is show more beginning to build his Ark and imagines step by step the vast economic and social consequences that would follow from such a vast construction project.
Identical planned communities arise from the need to provide housing and shops for the workers near the construction site. The local hills become deforested, leading to environmental concerns. Because so many people have become prosperous (the money flowing primarily from Noah's enormous but gradually dwindling herds of sheep), the arts flourish and change rapidly. In order to collect the animals that are to be included in the Ark, Noah must first engage the scientists to make a taxonomy of all existing species; to prevent the list from becoming too unwieldy, certain selections are made (a situation that recalls the woodworm's story in Julian Barnes' A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters). And as the Ark fills with animals, other problems arise: how to feed and muck out the vast numbers of creatures, how to prevent them from causing trouble, how to prevent the neighbors from becoming upset because of the terrible smell issuing from the Ark. The Ark becomes a tourist attraction, but Noah is, unfortunately, not clever enough to charge admittance to the world's first zoo. He is reaching the end of his abilities--and his money is running out.
Here the book ends, with the comment that "only a Flood could save Noah now."

Cleverly imagined, and the pace at which one development logically and seemingly inevitably follows the next is tremendous. It is easy to see how one person's project takes on a life of its own and soon changes are underway that are far out of his control and headed for disaster. The novel is fairly short, and written without chapter or section divisions; this is a bit confusing when the story abruptly jumps from one topic to something else, but it fits with the way society itself is irresistably pressing forward.

The story convinces, and it surely continues to be relevant today. But for some reason it felt slightly dated to me, perhaps because the satirical effect depends on the readers living in a time where there is a huge sense of optimism about the rapid economic growth, and today, I think, we have become somewhat more sobered in this regard. show less