196 Books: Germany

 Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck

It's kinda hard to miss Germany:

Here's the summary:

By the side of a lake in Brandenburg, a young architect builds the house of his dreams - a summerhouse with wrought-iron balconies, stained-glass windows the colour of jewels, and a bedroom with a hidden closet, all set within a beautiful garden. But the land on which he builds has a dark history of violence that began with the drowning of a young woman in the grip of madness and that grows darker still over the course of the century: the Jewish neighbours disappear one by one; the Red Army requisitions the house, burning the furniture and trampling the garden; a young East German attempts to swim his way to freedom in the West; a couple return from brutal exile in Siberia and leave the house to their granddaughter, who is forced to relinquish her claim upon it and sell to new owners intent upon demolition. Reaching far into the past, and recovering what was lost and what was buried, Jenny Erpenbeck tells a story both beautiful and brutal, about the things that haunt a home.

Before we get started on the book, can we all just take a minute to do a happy dance for America? And then raise up a middle finger to Trump? Great, thanks. 

I read another synopsis of the book that said the author's grandparents owned this house at one point. I couldn't find anything that corroborated that, but it's a really interesting detail if it's true. (I almost just typed "troo" wtf?!). Seeing that in retrospect made me wonder (again, if it's true) which characters her grandparents were. 

One of my favorite parts of reading each book is picturing the area, characters, and story as I'm reading it. For some reason I had a hard time getting an image in my head for this one. I would imagine basically a pond, but then it would talk about how big this lake is and diving for crabs and fishing, so that obviously was wrong. Then I would picture something like Lake Michigan, which is probably way too big. The really stupid thing is I grew up near a mid-size lake and would go to a park there in the summer, and my in-laws live on a different mid-size lake. They're not uncommon, so I have no idea why my stupid brain couldn't get it. 

One of the biggest things that caught me in this one was the whole requisitioning thing. From what I gathered, (full disclosure: I did ZERO research into this), people would be shipped out or leave during WWII and after the war, Russia just kind of took the homes and gave them to other people. So later on the original owners, if they turned back up, would have to petition to get it back. Which is messed up, especially because people left their homes because they were shipped off to concentration camps or were afraid enough for their lives. (As you know I'm pretty fascinated by the WWII era, and I've lately been reading some stories set in Germany at the time. This one didn't go into any deep detail, but it was still an interesting perspective).

There were low points in the house's history (suicide and rape) and high points (growing families, beautiful summer vacations). By the end of the book the house has fallen into disrepair. 

It made me think of my parents' house. My dad and grandpa built the house and my parents have lived there for over 30 years. My family has so much history there, but someday it'll be sold to another family and eventually another and another, and they'll all make their own memories and history there. It does make me a little sad to think about. 

So I still don't know if the author actually had any ties to this house, but I'd like to think so. I like the books that have personal ties to the story. And I like the idea of thinking about all the families that live in one house. This is making me feel like I should call my parents.