Foreword
Our world was shaped by WWII. The conflict, which spanned the globe, and the order it helped usher in affected the way we now think and behave. Free travel, free trade, an openness to other cultures and different ways of thinking, an affinity for pluralism and diversity – all of it was influenced by our reaction to a war that threatened to plunge the world in perpetual fire and darkness, and our rejection of that approach in favor of something more inclusive.
I’d like to draw attention to that explosive period in human history with a series of interlinked book reviews that focus on rabid partisanship and the danger it poses to an open world. The spirit that drove people to political and psychological extremes, on the platforms of which so many people took center stage to set the world on fire, all in the name of parties fueled by fear and loathing, is present in the three novels I’ll be focusing on. The stories are sharp and revelational, and I’d like to take you on a journey to showcase the depravity of parties gone rotten. This is about the fires that rage in the shadow of our instincts, in the presence of intoxicated crowds and their suppliers and enablers, and how to recognize them and call them by their name before they get out of control.
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Mr. Norris Changes Trains; To Die in Spring; The Night Watch. Three cautionary tales on the danger behind celebrations that cater to the base instincts of humanity.
Mr. Norris Changes Trains by Christopher Isherwood is a story that captures the decadence of Berlin in the 1930s during the early Nazi years. Something terrible is brewing, we can tell right away. The rise of the authoritarian state is traced out via the presence of intimidating officers who check the travelers’ papers at Germany’s borders. Even though the process sounds perfectly natural, it feels ominous, the threat of lingering violence suggested when William and Arthur, the two protagonists, meet for the first time. The setting is one of undercurrent tension, on the surface of which these two characters interact, navigating Berlin’s pervasive decadence, ending up on a New Year’s Eve romp through Berlin, flashing in and out of bars, parties and city cabs until they end up in a surreal party somewhere along the river. The house is overrun by an array of peculiar characters, burlesque in nature, colorful and bizarre. The whole affair is innocent on one level – as far as burlesque, surreal parties go – but there’s an explicit undertone of deviance and violence insinuated at the end of the event where we get a glimpse of scarlet and black apparel (uniforms?), and the act of sadomasochism in back rooms. There, across a dark corridor stuffed with furniture – all of which seems to have been moved to that space to make way for the party (an excellent allusion to what happens to a house when a great but ill-conceived bash is thrown) – is this not a genial way to portray Germany in the grip of a mad party? Indeed, and beyond that corridor, a slightly comical but disturbing scene unfolds, in which Arthur is on his knees, begging to be whipped and punished by his mistresses. His wig has been removed, he has been stripped down to his bare essence, almost, if you discount his ‘suit of mauve silk underwear’, a rubber belt, and his socks. In other words, Arthur is only somewhat dressed, in a bizarre kind of uniform, and he looks utterly ridiculous while performing his perverse acts. The echoes of the Reich are not far, Arthur’s wig resting in the main room, on a Bismarck bust that in turn rests on a Gothic dresser. Parallels and insinuations aplenty. And the next day, what a hangover awaits the revelers! Everyone is shattered, lying on the floor as if dead, a pile of bodies ‘sacrificed’ to the whims of a party that seems to have consumed everyone who partook, an esthetic we encounter in
To Die in Spring by Ralf Rothmann, the story of two German youths forced to volunteer for the SS at the end of WWII. The two youths are farmers, not Nazis, and they have thus far avoided getting involved in a war they don’t believe in. But the war comes and finds them. One day, the Waffen SS arrive and conscript them alongside a number of other men, young and old. Promptly the fresh recruits are trained and shipped to the various fronts, and the two youths find themselves in Hungary where fierce battles take place. Atrocities abound. The experience is hellish, the savagery of the conflict matched only by a savage kind of gaiety in which the Nazis immerse themselves to satisfy the ghosts in their heads and the blackness of their hearts. The Waffen SS are consumed by the crimes they commit, it seems, and spend their extra time gulping down cheap Hungarian wine and leftover Schnapps as the Reich’s end draws nearer with every passing day. Walter, the protagonist, a supplies driver, stumbles into an inn one day, near the front, where a sort of orgy takes place. Crammed inside a dank room, soldiers are busy drinking, smoking, dancing and roaring to the tunes of a piano. The piano player is half naked, an image of total abandon, and everyone chants, kisses and fornicates – the soldiers with the local women or with other soldiers. The depravity of the affair parallels the entire Reich, a country in the grip of a party gone terribly wrong. It’s not the promiscuity that makes the affair deviant but the lack of love and joy, an ugly business altogether with everyone strung out of their heads, high on amphetamines and heavy on downers, loaded with alcohol and bloodlust and perversion. They bark orders like dogs and jack each other off, making a show out of a woman urinating on the stove, a burlesque of utter grotesquery that renders everyone into beasts that salivate in the shadow of imminent collapse. Beauty is scarce, the affair a mere parody of love and fun, a mockery of joy and celebration, a psychotic, bestial affair whose esthetic may also be found in
The Night Watch by Patrick Modiano, a story about a French resistance fighter who is also a collaborator – or is he a collaborator posing as a resistance fighter? Playing a double double game, and unsure of his own actions, the unnamed narrator ventures into a world of shadows and deceit, the highlight of which is a decadent party thrown by collaborators and traitors – all of them Nazi stooges and tools whose primary concern is how to profit from the war, gain power, exercise influence, and have their crooked way. Theirs is a colorful, pan-European gathering from which the worst of the worst have come together in the wake of France’s collapse to feast on the remains of the state. Like vultures, these slimy and glib characters pretend to uphold the function and security of the occupied French state, all the while doing the Nazis’ bidding, lining their pockets with money. They have police commissionaires and politicians in their ranks. Their cause sounds lawful, but it emanates from the wrong kind of authority, driven by foul motive. The narrator belongs to this shady world, and, one day, escorted by the gang’s leaders, he walks into a feast of surreal quality in which a cast of unhinged characters show their treacherous faces, each of them playing a part in this mockery of a celebration. They play music and dance and drink while talking about raising the prices of contraband, and then torture a prisoner to death while the music still plays, watching him bleed on the rug and getting upset that the rug got soiled. Like faces borne out of a burlesque that resonates with the vibes of a nightmare, they whisk in and out of the scene like specters, embodying the demons that ravage the narrator for having collaborated with Nazi-friendly elements. Furthermore, they represent the torment of France itself, a substantial part of whose population collaborated with the Nazis after the surrender – the Vichy affair – an issue that remains a major point of shame in French history and culture; a taboo that Modiano, the author, addresses in his novella with this scene. The allegory is deft and effective. The event has an air of colorful funkiness at first, sounds and feels like a cool costume party, until one realizes that this is not a funky party after all. It’s a plunder, and the people involved are scavengers and lowlives on a rampage, and there will be a huge price to pay at the end of it, which brings us back to
Mr. Norris Changes Trains and its extravagant party scene, its absolutely shattered revelers and the excruciating day that awaits them in a life marred by reckless abandon, malice, and debris.
It’s important to note that To Die in Spring and The Night Watch were written after the war, but Mr. Norris Changes Trains was published in 1935, predicting – if not in detail, then in principle – many of the events that the other two books later reflected on. Isherwood’s novel was sagacious and precognitive in terms of how the Third Reich party would end, the author’s choice of words ringing ever so true now, not just after the fact, but in the face of resurgent nationalism across 21st-century Europe, America, and the world at large.
It’s amazing how insightful art can be. It often predicts history because it has the ability to capture and illuminate key moments in time, shining light on the dynamics that power them and what is likely to come.
The notion of a party gone wrong is one such premise, which these three stories deal with ever so deftly, illuminating our tendency to lose sight of the bigger picture; how humanity gets carried away in a sea of enthusiasm that, left unchecked, leads to a humongous hangover with an exorbitant bill at the end of it – in other words, to total ruin.
A very steep price indeed. Unchecked enthusiasm and partisanship gone awry are dangerous indulgences, as history testifies. How many times, one wonders, will humanity go through this before we get the message?
Mr. Norris Changes Trains (1935) by Christopher Isherwood
To Die in Spring (2015; English translation 2017) by Ralf Rothmann
The Night Watch (1969: English translation 2015) by Patrick Modiano
