Mother and daughter deal with the demands of life differently. But what Karla learned from Gerda: to assert her place in the world.
Photo: Manfred Uhlenhut
Gerda is the mother, Karla the daughter. They are 30 years apart. Karla was born shortly before the fall of communism. Something has happened that they don’t understand each other. Or to put it another way: They get along, but not well. If they weren’t mother and daughter, they would probably avoid each other. But the two of them suddenly find themselves on a trip to Hamburg, which was organized by Gerda’s children – Karla’s siblings – to see the musical “The Lion King” there.
That’s the whole story around which Paula Irmschler built her new novel “Everything was always because of back then.” The lightness that characterizes this book also comes from the fact that you could think that the characters would do the rest themselves – simply by being who they are.
Nevertheless, some of the major issues of today are there. However, they are so woven into the biographies of the two protagonists that they resonate, but never become decisive. One could also read this book as an ironic commentary on the genre of thesis novel; there are enough points of reference.
It is an Eastern novel. Gerda is an Ossi mother, a single parent and therefore forced to have the children taken care of, and was happiest shortly before Karla was born. The East German character, the constant hurt in the face of the sell-out of one’s own past – be it that her neighborhood is being gentrified, or that she can’t get to the island that she would like to see on a trip to the Baltic Sea because of some West German one Asshole who bought everything up and built a fence around it – and her nostalgic nostalgia that always shines through (Trabbis are better than SUVs) sometimes bothers her; But Gerda can’t get rid of her.
It is also a novel about poverty: Gerda didn’t have much money throughout her life, and throughout the entire book Karla probably never had more than 50 euros at her disposal. It is a feminist novel: Men only appear on the sidelines, and they deserve it, after all – except for their son Fritz – they all ran away on their trips to self-discovery and self-assertion. It’s also a queer novel: Karla lives in a same-sex relationship, but doesn’t really belong to the scene, it’s just how she is.
But the protagonists are not affected by these questions; these difficulties do not define them. Their identity cannot be boiled down to a single sociological question. They also have their resources to react to the demands of reality: Gerda has her indestructible nature that has already dealt with completely different things, Karla has a girlfriend and best friend and her dreams and wishes that help her get through everyday life. Paula Irmschler’s characters are not puppets hanging on the narrator’s strings, but rather, despite all their mistakes and insecurities, they are still robust figures who assert their place in the world, no matter how small it may be.
There is still one label missing from this list that Paula Irmschler leaves out: that of the generational novel. Gerda likes to use the family chat to get to a point bluntly and bluntly, because that’s the way she learned to speak and she can’t unlearn this type of communication – even though or precisely because it cost her a lot to speak; For example, the connection with her own sister Drea (whom she loves very much or at least has loved like no other person) could be much better if Gerda were not so confrontational.
But it is also clear that Gerda, despite all her efforts to assert herself and be a mother, will not be able to do this. If it were still like it was in the East, when motherhood was one of the norms, then perhaps; But the shocks of the fall of the Wall left no family structure untouched, including this one. Gerda would like to understand better why Karla moved to this “asshole” Cologne, but she can’t; just as she cannot understand her own daughter. Tragic, but that’s it.
The fact that Paula Irmschler succeeds in this type of narrative is because it is a clean and thoughtfully told story (only the fact that Karla never thought about not being neurotypical and never looked for diagnoses or fellow sufferers is surprising). a little). And the story is also successful because the whole event is told in a friendly, casual manner, which is reflected in Gerda’s down-to-earth pragmatism.
This story is also held together by the way Paula Irmschler uses humor. Because “Everything is always because of back then” is just that: a strange book. A quiet, never intrusive irony runs through the text, although this irony is never directed against the characters or even betrays them. Both main characters know that they are strange in a certain way, strange and funny, but they also can’t get out of their skin. Paula Irmschler always admits that they can begin to recognize themselves and laugh at themselves. For example, in the very last sentences of the book: Gerda is just setting off on a trip that she has long imagined taking, and is now standing next to the car. “Then she taps on the roof of the car and says, ‘Let’s go.’ Luckily no one saw that.”
It’s this kind of loving humor that teases rather than kicks that makes the book special. In the end, it’s a beautifully told story that never claims to want to be anything more. This is a special gift, especially in times of steep theses and excited market shouting.
Paula Irmschler: It’s all because of back then. dtv, hardcover, 320 pages, €24.
The lightness that characterizes this book also comes from the fact that you could think that the characters would do the rest themselves – simply by being who they are.
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