Ehen in Philippsburg by Martin Walser

At the end of January, I wrote that I was not sure I was going to finish Ehen in Philippsburg (Marriages in Philippsburg). It’s not that the book was bad, as such, it’s just that more than six months had elapsed since I had started reading, and that was a good indicator that the novel was not really holding my attention. I had two main reasons for not consigning it to DNFland. First, and more pragmatically, reading German is a skill, and like every skill, it needs practicing. Second, the Philippsburg was part of the Süddeutsche Zeitung‘s first batch of great novels of the 20th century, and the editors who selected those 50 books for publication in a special edition had a mostly good track record of choosing worthwhile books that I probably would not have picked out on my own. So in the interest of skill and serendipity, after I finished Chevengur (which was two years in the reading) I resolved that I would finish Ehen in Philippsburg in May.

Truth be told, once I built up a little momentum, it was good reading, maybe even compelling. Back in January, I wrote that Walser’s “lead character is a young man on the make; he catches some lucky breaks, is sweet on his fiancée’s mother, gets business tips from his future father-in-law, and looks like he’s going places in postwar Philippsburg, a fictional city in the southern parts of West Germany.” I could tell from the pacing, though, that the rest of the novel could not continue on the same trajectory, and speculated that there might be a big fall ahead.

I had forgotten that some German books still put their tables of contents at the back of the book, and so I didn’t realize that Walser broke Philippsburg into four parts. Hans Beumann, the young man on the make in the first part, becomes a secondary character in the second and third parts, and returns more or less as the lead character of the fourth. The first section ends with a harrowing account of what happens when Beumann’s fiancée, Anne Volkmann, seeks to have an abortion. She is shuttled from doctor to doctor, some of whom have no intention of helping and indeed pretend to help while simply passing time in the hope that Anne will decide it’s too late to end the pregnancy. Other doctors are too mindful of their reputations and try to send her to someone else. She does finally succeed, and survives the various attempts, but it’s a hard reminder of what criminalizing abortion meant in 1950s West Germany.

One of the doctors who sent Anne elsewhere is the main character of the second part, “A Death Must Have Consequences.” Dr. Benrath is having a long-term affair with Cécile, the owner of one of Philippsburg’s finest home decor stores. They are both conflicted; their discussion is almost Godot-like in the way that they say they can’t keep meeting while knowing how many times they have said that before, and how likely it is that they will in fact keep meeting. But on this particular day Dr. Benrath returns from his assignation to find that his wife Birga has taken her own life. Like he did with Anne, Dr. Benrath attempts to evade all responsibility. He gets people to cover for him at his medical practice. He gets the police and an ambulance service to take his wife’s body away. He gets a lawyer to deal with everything else. He sends a telegram to his in-laws, explaining that their only child is dead and that he will not be attending the funeral.

The lawyer in question, one Dr. Alwin — German lawyers make use of the title that goes with juris doctor — is a slightly older man on the make and the main character of the third section. (He’s in his mid-30s.) He’s about to close his practice so as to devote his time to a political party he is in the process of founding: the Christian Social Liberal Party of Germany. This fictional party borrows parts of the names of the three main West German parties of the time; amusingly, the one adjective common to all three of them is the one that Alwin omits: democratic. Alwin hopes to offer everyone something, except democracy. The action of the section takes place at the engagement party for Hans Beumann and Anne Volkmann. Alwin’s marriage initially appears happy and healthy, but of course Alwin is philandering. Cécile is also at the party — as are several other characters from previous sections — and Alwin would happily start something with her, given the chance.

In the final section, Hans Beumann returns. The section begins with him reading the notebooks left behind by Beumann’s upstairs neighbor, who has also taken his own life. It then moves to Beumann’s acceptance into the inner sanctum of Philippsburg society, demonstrated by receiving a key to an after-hours bar known as Sebastian. The city’s male movers and shakers are all members of the club, which is run by a woman named Cordula, who once had the social role now held by Cécile. Walser gradually relates that Sebastian is little more than an elegant and artistic facade for a brothel. Beumann gains acceptance among the prominent Philippsburgers by facing down an uncouth lottery winner who has somehow gained a key. He starts an affair with a woman he had previously known in an office job, but who confides that she earns twice as much at Sebastian and hopes to become famous. He sees no reason why this should have any effect on his forthcoming marriage to Anne.

With Philippsburg, Walser’s first novel, he satirized West German society of the economic miracle years. None of the marriages in Philippsburg are happy partnerships of equals, and yet divorce was practically unheard of. Some aspects of marriage were still governed by laws passed when there was still a Kaiser on the throne in Berlin. Not that any of the characters are particularly concerned with the niceties of law. Some of the set pieces are funny, or at least amusing. The city’s blowhards, from the head of the public broadcaster to Dr. Alwin, who is astonishingly full of himself even for a lawyer and a would-be politician, are shown in all their fatuous glory, along with the efforts to get them to shut up finally. On the whole, though, Ehen in Philippsburg is a chronicle of an era going on three quarters of a century past. Its concerns are no longer urgent, its portraits not especially universal, and its appeal mainly to people already interested in the days of West Germany’s economic miracle.