Summerhouse, Later: Stories

Judith Hermann’s debut volume of short fiction—deftly translated from the German original by Margot Bettauer Dembo—paints a fascinating if sometimes perplexing portrait of a youthful generation, rootless inhabitants of a society that dangles possibilities but doesn’t give its citizens a solid foundation on which to build a life, or any reason to aspire for success or significance. Many of Hermann’s characters behave in what seems a deliberately purposeless fashion, distracting themselves from a pervasive lack of meaning by drifting through a series of empty activities and entertainments. They live for the moment, with little regard for what the future might hold. In the volume’s opening tale, “The Red Coral Bracelet,” show more the young female narrator recalls her great-grandmother’s marriage to a man who manufactures furnaces. He takes his young wife to Russia, where the need is great, and there, the narrator’s great-grandfather is compelled to abandon his wife because of the huge demand for his product. He travels all over the country, for years at a time, and while he’s away she takes a series of lovers, all of whom shower her with gifts, one of which is the red coral bracelet. Years later, the narrator is wearing her great-grandmother’s bracelet in her therapist’s office when the string breaks and the beads scatter all over the floor, freeing her from the shackles of a troubling personal history. In “Hurricane (Something Farewell),” Nora and Christine are visiting a friend who lives on a tropical island. Without any goals and untethered by emotional connections, they spend their time drinking, getting high, and engaging in meaningless dalliances. News comes that a hurricane is approaching, but there is little sense of urgency. In the end, Christine goes home to resume her life, and Nora stays behind. And in “Sonja,” an artist finds himself inexplicably haunted by an enigmatic young woman he meets on a train. The young woman, Sonja, has an odd appearance—“her face was as unusual and as old-fashioned as one of those Madonna paintings from the fifteenth century”—and lives in an apartment by herself with no visible means of support. The attraction is not sexual, but in her presence his inhibitions melt away and he talks about himself and his life in more detail than with anyone else, including his girlfriend Verena. In the end the lines of communication break down and Sonja vanishes from his life, without reason or explanation, leaving behind no traces of her existence. Hermann’s collection presents a succession of lives in stasis, people whose objectives are half-formed, whose motivations are obscure and unarticulated. One could complain that Hermann’s characters lack depth, that their struggles are empty. This may be true, but the book remains captivating nonetheless because of the atmospheric details that she drops into her expressive prose, and the level of invention that drives the action. Her plots are mostly hazy and dreamlike; they evade description and resist quick summary. Not for all tastes, but in these fictions, Judith Hermann provides a glimpse into a shadowy and slightly off-kilter version of reality that is memorable and poignant. show less

A competent, nicely-written collection of intriguingly understated short stories. "Rote Korallen" and "Sonja" were probably the best pieces, but I wouldn't go out of my way to re-read them: nothing really striking or individual.
Hermann is clearly a good writer, but it didn't really click for me: I think the main problem is that the stories are mostly written in a pastiche sixties-American style (one even has a protagonist called Hunter Tompson). This is not necessarily a defect, of course, and was maybe even a fashionable and radical way to write in 90s Berlin, but it's not a style I'm very fond of, and it's certainly not what I'm looking for in a German writer...

In vers short sentences and with little words strong images of the outside and inside world are provoked.

For me it was really a book about people in their thirties, living a life without making real choices and always longing for something bigger. Very recognisable.

Only the first story was different, because there the past is a burden for the protagonist and there is a sense of winning freedom by letting that past go.

All other stories are marked by an abundance of freedom, where every house is temporarily as either a car, hotel room or old shag. Ready to be abandoned when life takes another turn. No ideals except drinking, a place at this the bar where you can exchange your troubles to someone else, waiting for the world to rescue show more you.

I would recommend everybody to read this work if you are able to accept the writing style. Often very short sentences, little words, in a rhythm, set by commas’. show less

I read this book in German and English only to find the German esoteric language value lost when I read the English version. Perhaps intention and meaning suffered in translation but it's probably more along the lines of losing the need to understand every word when everything was simply written in English. Nevertheless, the English version is quite good. I think the art and literature coming out of Berlin at the moment is notable.

9 stories, mostly set in Berlin, but one in New York. All in plain speaking, direct style. All peculiar in that the people in the story are drawn by indirection, by a casual aside, by sometimes inexplicable action, by sometimes seeming to drift, by all hoping something better is just beyond (but never is). Most living in a background of seemingly casual sex (but that is of ten pretense, as in the final story, Summerhouse, later). Often an object becomes the surrogate for the grasping at life and reaching for love: the summerhouse, the Bali woman, the remnants of gone lives.

Da dieses Buch eines der ersten von mir auf Dt gelesenen Bücher war, besteht ein grosser Teil meiner Sternchen-Sympathie aus dem Beflügelungsgefühl beim Lesen in einer fremden Sprache. Das später erschienene zweite Buch der Autorin habe ich nicht vor zu lesen, da mir die Texte, die ich in einer Lesung gehört habe, ziemlich wässrig vorkamen.

Great collection of short stories, read it in German if you can, she makes beautiful sentences and images.