Hello
Gentle Reader,
There’s
a thrill in perusing through an antique dealer. Be it in an antique shop or
mall. Curiosity cabinet or junk shop. Flea market or church bazaar. Estate or
jumble or yard sale. The best ones are those who have accumulated their wares
with a magpie eye and the temperament of a squirrel. Order be damned. It’s a stockpile
of chaos. A rat’s nets with no rhyme or reason. Each new acquisition deposited
in an otherwise precarious spot. Always under the understanding that transience
is the name of the game. There is always the threat of upheaval. Space is occupied
and relinquished in an otherwise transactional reality. Nothing is static. Especially
with an influx of inventory set to arrive, meaning accommodations need to be
arranged, requiring alterations and space to be made for new arrivals or
another haul. Its all rather natural. This state of reassembly and
reconfiguration. Each storefront a ramshackle dragons hoard where treasure,
trinket and rubbish come to co-exist. They form pockets and capsules, orphaned
from the river of time. Though saved from the permanent end of the landfill. An
otherwise unceremonious burial. Each place will have their own layout and appearance;
though the atmosphere is always the same. One might suspect its curated or a
staged effect. Its merely consequence of such an accumulation. The lighting
soft, almost a resin in its syrup application, pouring over the shelves crowded
with an eclectic assortment; cabinets stocked with all manner of objects;
tables stacked with odds and ends; an accrual of heaps piled up miscellaneously.
What a pleasure it is to shuffle about, reviewing the stockpile. Objects discarded
and washed ashore bring back memories due to their familiarity. A mid-century
pattern pyrex mixing bowl, transports you back to your mothers’ kitchen. It’ll be
autumn, the canning is finished. A bountiful harvest. You helped that year,
scalding the tomatoes. Transferring them from the boiling pot to the ice bath.
Whereby they were plucked and peeled, chopped and canned then processed. After processing
you were shooed away. In the evening the house was interrupted by the chorus of
the jars sealing. An echo of popping from the kitchen. In another cabinet, a pink
depression glass candy bowl reminds you of your grandmother. An enigma of a
woman. Unknowable in a myriad of ways. Though she wanted to be sweet and warm;
but was lost in the mist of melancholy. The candy dish forever held the same
scotch mint. Grandfathers favourite. Though he was a ghost upon your own
arrival. Long since deceased. Despite this, his preferences remained intact, ritualistically
upheld. One of those ways we find to preserve the memory and presence. When grandmother
died and the house was packed up, the candy bowl would be discarded. Just one
of those things no one had use for. The memories of these otherwise impersonal
objects are what gives them just a bit more meaning through personal narrative.
Though we all know they are not the same ones, they’re produced carbon copies
have stumbled into these sanctuaries.
The
state of impermanence is perhaps one of the defining literary preoccupations of
Jenny Erpenbeck. Having been born and raised in the former East Germany (GDR |
German Democratic Republic) to a privileged household; Erpenbeck’s entire early
life has all but disappeared. Evaporating into the annals of history. Whereby
it can be viewed behind glass enclosures, complete with accompanying text
provided some context. In short, a piece of Erpenbeck’s life and existential
experiences have all been carted off and away into exhibits. In The Paris
Review, in an article titled “Homesick for Sadness,” with almost comical
matter of fact understatement her memories of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the
inevitability of the unification of Germany:
“What was I doing the night the Wall
fell?
I spent the evening with friends just a
few blocks from the spot where history was being made, and then: I went to bed.
I slept right through it. And while I slept the pot wasn’t just stirred, it was
knocked over and smashed to bits. The next morning, I was told we wouldn’t need
pots anymore.”
Overnight
the old order fell away. Familiarity and reality had dissolved into obsolescence.
How then does one get their bearings, when theirs no hand rail and barely any
stairs? The transition to freedom is, unsurprisingly, a bewildering and
impersonal experience. To quote Erpenbeck from the same article:
“Everyday life was no longer everyday
life: it was an adventure that had been survived. Our customs were now a
sideshow attraction. Everything that had been self-evident forfeited its
self-evidence within the span of a few weeks. A door that opened only once
every hundred years was now standing ajar, but the hundred years were gone
forever. From this point on, my childhood became a museum exhibit.”
Despite
this, as writers such as Herta Müller, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Imre Kertész, Svetlana
Alexveich, Ismail Kadare, and Václav Havel, pointed out the Soviet Union and
its ironclad communism was an oppressive authoritarian system actively asphyxiating
the populace. It would be a stretch, if not a blatant farce, to call it a
socialist utopia (as so much soviet propaganda heralded it as such). Regardless,
it is interesting to read another perspective from behind the Iron Curtain. In “Things
That Disappear,” Jenny Erpenbeck takes inventory of the state of loss. A growing
refugee camp of items no longer required because they are out of sync with the
times or out of fashion. Their functions, their values, their features all harken
back to a lost world. Erpenbeck describes their abrupt desuetude with lamenting
precision:
“Things disappear when they are deprived
of their means of existence, as if they, too, have a hunger that must be
satisfied.”
The
inventoried items having been lost or at the risk of being lost to the dusts of history
before their gradual fade into oblivion, having been catalogued in “Things That Disappear,”
vary in scope and size. There is the mundane drip catcher (Tropfenfänger)
which is deployed on coffee pots to save the starched clean integrity of table
clothes from unnecessary dribbles. To the vague question of whether or not
manners are still exercised as a form of social courtesy, or if it too has been
abandoned as being out of step with the times. Other losses, however, are far
larger in scale and scope, as in the case of the demolition of the Palast der
Republik, a monument to the former East Germany, a glittering structure of
brutalist geography with bronze tinted glass. Upon reunification its
demolished. Erpenbeck, however, reminisces over its representation as some
shining ideal. The ideal being the egalitarian nature of the former GDR, where
the state house was by nature, the peoples house, housing bowling alleys and cinemas.
Until, it too went to dust.
Jenny
Erpenbeck succeeds in “Things That Disappear,” by cataloguing the material and
mundane loss that inhabits the everyday life. Look no farther then any flea
market, church bazaar, or antique store to see the wonders of yesteryear now
being sold as vintage or a throwback. True gems though go for a higher price. This
sense of palpability of the past is what makes shows such as “The Repair Shop,”
so beautiful and endearing. Through refurbishment and repair the past is no
longer alien or memory being summoned from the ethereal recesses of the mind,
but instead given renewed and rehabilitated shape to shine once again. For a
new generation to love and adore. Ultimately though, as Erpenbeck continues to
survey and exemplify, nothing will last forever. Not the objects in question;
not the manners; not the customs, traditions or rituals; not the buildings or
monuments; not the memories; not even the countries. They are all at risk of
being washed away or written off or retired. While time marches forward and
what is loss is readily abandoned. Jenny Erpenbeck in “Things That Disappear,” finds
and outlet to at least mourn and provide some obituary to what is being
forgotten. Tiled stoves she advises should not be abandoned. Central heating is
a contemporary luxury and expectation, but never be quick to denounce a redundancy
in the event of a crisis, hence the advise to keep tiled stoves. Then there is the frustration when your favourite pastry
is metamorphosed into a different something else that no longer resembles it. Erpenbeck
succeeds capturing this private almost absurd moments of grief and frustration.
“There’s an isle of the Blessed somewhere
in Eastern Germany where a Ferris wheel rises above fields of rapeseed, bran,
and oats, where a boat swings, where the pop hit of sixties echo across the
grounds, merci, merci, merci; where the llama grazes alongside the cow, for
the hours, chérie, chérie, chérie, where the fox from the petting zoo plays
with the boss’s pug, where a cup of coffee costs fifty cents, including powdered
creamer and sugar cubes from the family-sized pack. Once you’ve entered this
paradise (1 child + 1 adult = 12 euros), all the rides are free, even the
bumper cars, for as long you want. The only things that cost extra are shooting
and throwing games.”
This
scene from the short column or essay “Middle of Nowhere,” describes the fate
that befalls all objects and societies as they are phased out. The wistful decrepitude
and eventual decay. Another touching column detailing a coal merchant, reveals a man lost and abandoned in a new world, which no longer requires him. While change is inevitable; in the same vein as progress is
inevitable. The poignancy of this is realised after the world you knew and recognised
and has been reshaped and recalibrated, leaving you behind in the process. “Things
That Disappear,” was an interesting introduction into the work of Jenny Erpenbeck,
her curated exhibit of the losses and the alienation one feels when their world
has abruptly changed.
Thank
you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take
Care
And
As Always
Stay
Well Read
M.
Mary
For
Further Reading: Jenny Erpenbeck: "Homesick for Sadness," (The Paris Review)
