‘Niederungen’ (‘Lowlands’) by Herta Müller (Review)

After a week spent in South America, with visits to Bolivia and Argentina, we’re jetting off to Europe for the next leg of our epic Women in Translation Month (#WITMonth) journey.  Our destination today is Romania, even if the language is German, and a famous writer will be going back to her roots in a number of short scenes.  An idyllic work of fond childhood memories, then?  I’m afraid not.  Continuing the rather dark theme of the month, this one shows us that growing up in the countryside isn’t really all that fun…

*****
Romanian author Herta Müller, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2009, grew up among the so-called Banatschwaben, a group of German speakers in the west of the country.  This upbringing influenced her writing (and, of course, the language she wrote in), and Niederungen (Lowlands), her first published work, provides fascinating insights into her origins and upbringing.  The book, which was altered for the first German edition but has now been republished in the writer’s desired structure, consists of a number of short stories alongside the novella-length title piece, which takes up half the book.

‘Niederungen’ itself covers a few years in the life of a young girl growing up in the countryside, looking at her family life, the community she lives in and the natural environment surrounding her.  Her parents, as you’d expect, figure prominently here, but there’s little tenderness, with the mother in particular having no time for any cheek:

Die Kuh muhte tagelang ins leere Stroh.  Sie rührte das Futter nicht an.  Sie schlürfte tagelang bloß Wasser, bloß kaltes Wasser und senkte beim Saufen den Kopf bis zu den Ohrenspitzen in den Eimer.  Mutter brachte jeden Mittag warme, kuhwarme Milch in die Küche.  Ich fragte sie, ob auch sie traurig wäre, wenn man mich ihr wegnehmen, mich schlachten würde.  Ich fiel an die Kastentür, ich hatte eine geschwollene Oberlippe und einen violetten Fleck auf dem Arm.  All das von der Ohrfeige.
‘Niederungen’, p.65 (Fischer Verlag, 2020)

The cow mooed into the empty straw for days.  She didn’t touch her feed.  For days she just slurped up water, just cold water, and when drinking dipped her head into the bucket up to her ears.  Every day at midday, mother brought warm, cow-warm, milk into the kitchen.  I asked her whether she would also be sad if somebody took me away from her, slaughtered me.  I fell against the cabinet door, my upper lip was swollen, and there was a purple patch on my arm.  All that from the blow.
*** (my translation)

The girl has to learn not to push her parents’ buttons, working out when to be quiet and when she can cautiously approach for a little affection.

At other times, we’re shown slightly less violent scenes.  The narrator is a girl often left to her own devices while the adults are hard at work, playing games with her cousin next door and wandering the fields, or messing about down by the river.  In many ways, I was reminded of my own childhood by all this roaming outside during the long summer days – definitely very different times…

In truth, there’s little real difference between this longer story and the majority of the shorter pieces that accompany it, a number of fragments with the same setting, and often the same characters.  Lighter stories, such as ‘Das Schwäbische Bad’ (‘The Swabian Bath’), which shows the family taking turns to use bath water that grows ever cooler and grimier, are set against bleaker pieces, like ‘Der Mann mit der Zündholzschachtel’ (‘The Man with the Box of Matches’), hinting at pyromania.

The more we read, the more we learn about the village, a secluded, slightly depressing place, where there’s little to enjoy amidst a grim life.  There is the occasional mention of dances, and later holidays, yet the writer’s preoccupation with funerals seems a more fitting representation of what goes on.  Intriguingly, there are also several hints of rampant infidelity, ranging from the spiteful gossip in ‘Meine Familie’ (‘My Family’) to the narrator’s first-hand knowledge of an affair in ‘Faule Birnen’ (‘Rotten Pears’).

What makes Müller’s book stand out, though, is the way it’s written.  It’s very much seen through a child’s eye, mainly written in simple sentences, but often with a kick, a nasty twist.  The writer also delights in word play, showing us the child’s view only to switch to a different perspective:

Der Pfarrer sagt: meine lieben Gläubigen, heute ist Allerheiligen, heute haben unsere lieben Verstorbenen, unsere toten Seelen ein Freudenfest.  Heute haben unsere toten Seelen Kerweih.
‘Drückender Tango’ (‘Oppressive Tango’), p.116

The priest says: my dear worshippers, today is All Saints’, today our dearly departed, our dead souls are having a celebration.  Today our dead souls are having their own fair. ***

After which the girl conjures up images of music and dancing, taking the priest’s words a little too literally!

In some of the stories, Müller goes even further, to the extent that the language pushes the content into the background.  A good example of this is ‘Die Strassenkehrer’ (‘The Streetsweepers’), two pages of nonsense prose in which inanimate objects seem to take centre stage:

Neben mir bellt der Park.  Die Eulen fressen die Küsse auf, die auf den Bänken geblieben sind.  Die Eulen ubersehen mich.  Im Gebüsch kauern die müden strapazierten Träume.
‘Die Strassenkehrer’, p.155

Beside me the park barks.  The owls gobble up the kisses that have been left on the benches.  The owls don’t notice me.  In the bushes cower all the tired, worn-out dreams. ***

This is just one of several stories where reality seems to fall away, allowing flights of fantasy to take over.

Of course, that may have something to do with the political climate, and while the earlier, countryside-based stories seem to exist in a political vacuum (albeit with signs of tension there for those who how how to read them), towards the end of the book, Müller turns her attention to more urban, and political, life.  ‘Schwarzer Park’ (‘Black Park’) has a woman wasting a day in a labyrinth of bureaucracy, attempting to sort out her work situation, while ‘Herr Wultschmann’ invites us to share a day in the life of an old Nazi complaining about modern times.  Perhaps my favourite of these pieces is ‘Die Meinung’ (‘The Opinion’), an allegorical tale in which a frog, otherwise an outstanding employee, is punished for refusing to give up on having a mind of his own.

Niederungen is certainly interesting, but I’d have to say it’s a book I appreciated rather than enjoyed.  It’s a bit of a mixed bag, and the style Müller opts for isn’t one I particularly favour.  I’m not sure it’s for everyone, and given there isn’t a translation into English (that I’m aware of, at least), I suspect this will remain a book for those who are bigger Müller fans than I am – and who can read German, of course.  I’m willing to give her work another try, but I think that my next choice will be one of her meatier novels, hopefully set away from her rather depressing home village.  Not that I’m expecting things to be any happier elsewhere, of course – as was the case for the little girl in the farmhouse, I’m sure joyous laughter was in short supply in 1980s Romania…