Anna Weidenholzer

This is the story of a woman descending into depression: she loses her husband, loses her job, and stays away from family, friends and neighbours. A person succumbing to a lifelong sense of inadequacy.

None of that is a spoiler, by the way: the novel is also told backwards. It starts at chapter 54 and ends with chapter 1, and so we find out she’s depressed and powerlessly alone in the first few pages. The rest of the book fleshes out individual humiliations, shortcomings, and episodes of inhibition. As the book progresses (regresses?), the chapters get shorter: we already know what is going to happen, and exposition can be done away with. Perhaps unexpectedly, the book gets more engrossing as it moves along and events hinted at or events surmisable from context are brought to the fore.

This book, I think, did the reverse ordering right. In the past, I’ve criticized similarly structured books for mishandling that aspect, in particular Sarah Waters’ WWII novel The night watch, which which treats all the things readers are able to figure out in the earlier (though chronologically later) portions as surprise revelations once we get to them in later (though chronologically earlier) chapters. Der Winter tut den Fischen gut has a little more respect for its readers: it fully expects us to keep track, and merely elaborates on what we have worked out on our own.

Well-told, restrained, not overwritten. I recommend it (if you read German).… (more)