Cotton wool
Harriet Waugh
The Swan Villa Martin Walser
(Secker & Warburg £7.95)
Martin Walser is a German writer and his novel, The Swan Villa, has been translated by Leila Lennewitz. The quota- tions on the back of the jacket about one of his earlier novels indicate that he is highly thought of; and that 'every paragraph: every incident seems to be exactly right 1.0 length, in placing, in mood and in detail (The Northern Echo). He is a 'gimlet author, boring into people's veneered exteriors (Daily Telegraph). All this makes me feel peculiarlY philistine and shallow because I have to ad- mit that I had extraordinary difficulty in making myself persevere to the end of The Swan Villa. Reading it was an endurance test; where a mountain climber might tell himself that he will not rest until he has reached a certain rock or peak, I measured my need for a rest about every ten pages; Once, in desperation, I found myselfl reading it aloud in order to force my eYes and mind to continue along the lines of words. The publishers, as though in con- spiracy with the writer to make the task harder, have chosen to print the book u ug- ly, black type that shows through from the following page. I suppose it is just possible
that, realising that the reader might be tempted to allow his eye to wander, they decided on pitch black print in the hope of forcing the words on him. If this is the case It, is an unscrupulous form of coercion. The task of reading is not made easier by the novelist who presents his prose in block for- mation without any indentations for speech. In consequence I moved from Paragraph to paragraph as though gulping for air.
The story is concerned with an estate agent in a small Bavarian town. Gottlieb Zurn is a timid man given to convoluted cir- cular thinking that leaves him stranded, unable to do anything about anything. He fantasises about his female clients while be- ing terrified of seeming foolish either to them or to his business competitors.
The Swan Villa is a large house by the lake with murals of naked people and peacocks and elaborate ceilings. It has been abandoned to dust, cobwebs and swans and is to be sold. Gottlieb is desperate to get it for his agency. It is a fantasy house that will bring in a huge commission and increase Gottlieb's prestige among the fraternity if he can advertise it under his by-line. Usually he grovels about at the bottom end of the market. The town in which Gottlieb lives is viewed entirely as though it were populated by estate agents, buyers and their adjuncts. And in this scape the two barons of the LOWn are Mr Schatz, and Mr Kaltammer, a Property redeveloper. Gottlieb spends his days waging a futile jealous war against these giants. He meets friends in a cafe for bitter gossip and goes to a party where he is 1n constant anxiety about whether he is be- ing 'got at'. The villa continues dream-like Just beyond his grasp. The prospect of humiliation is all around him, not least in his domestic life. His wife Anna, who treats him as one of the children, moves from one violent concern to another; her youngest child, a school girl, is erupting in boils and running a fever. It could be herpes but none of the doctors are really sure. The oldest daughter is pregnant by a megalomaniac Inn cameraman and one of the middle daughters lolls apathetically on the sofa contemplating a pointless existence. Gott- lieb
iS unable to help with any of these
crises. Instead he is taken in by the Megalomaniac cameraman and goes on a spending spree he cannot afford. The domestic life of the family is con- siderably more interesting than the quest for the Swan Villa but everything is muffled M the thick, cotton wool-like substance of Gottlieb's mind. Although Mr Walser suc- ceeds in showing the torture of being Gott- lieb, he does so at the expense of the reader °,y enveloping him in the same ghastly muf- tld chamber. This certainly does not make the book very readable. This 'gimlet author boring into people's veneered exteriors' is, alas, simply boring. In spite of the Northern Echo's enthusiasm, it is hard not to suspect that Martin Walser Can be bought very cheaply when the Parsimonious boss of Secker and Warburg goes shopping at the Frankfurt Book Fair.
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