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 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 dust history before their gradual fade into oblivion, 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. 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. 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.
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
M.
Mary
For
Further Reading: Jenny Erpenbeck: "Homesick for Sadness," (The Paris Review)
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