REVIEW: THE VANISHING OF KATHARINA LINDEN by Helen Grant

Who says you forget everything you learned in school?  Admittedly, some details are clearer than others.  I graduated from college nearly (gulp) ten years ago already and I still lapse into German when I am tired.  And English is my first language.  For some reason, the language stuck with me -- as did the bizarre fables and fairy tales we translated in class.

To this day, one of the most unnerving and unusual is "Die Wassernixe", or "The Water Sprite."  In short, a brother and a sister are playing near a well (or fountain, depending on the version) and fall in.  They are captured by the lazy-but-not-that-evil nymph who lives there.  She makes them do her chores, which include carrying water in a bucket with a hole in it (it's not clear why, since she lives underwater).  One day, when the Wassernixe goes to church (yes! she goes to church!), the kids try to make their escape.  She goes after them so to slow her down the girl throws a hairbrush over her shoulder, which promptly turns into a mountain of bristles.  This only causes a minor delay so the brother then does the same with his comb, with similar results.  Finally, the sister throws her mirror, which turns into a great mountain of glass, too slippery for the Sprite.  

Don't believe me?  Read it here, in several languages.  The Grimms were normally good about making the moral of the story clear, but even now, and as a literature major, I'm still not sure about this one.  Always carry grooming supplies?  Don't play near fountains?  Wait until your captor goes to church?

The Brothers Grimm

Anyway, the point of my lengthy tangent, is that I was so wonderfully reminded of my German lessons, and of Die Wassernixe with Helen Grant's debut novel.  The story takes place in Bad Munstereifel (a real place) in the mid-1990s.  Told from the first-person point-of-view of a spunky eleven-year-old, Pia, it centers around the strange disappearance of the little Linden girl.  And the connection?  She was last seen playing by the fountain in the town square.  From then on, water, wells, underground rivers and dampness will become a leitmotif for the book. 

As she and her friend Stefan search for clues, avoid stifling adults, and execute daring plans, one is reminded of carefree, adventurous summers -- with a less frightening quest, perhaps.  Still, her narrative is refreshing and raw at the same time.  Childhood convictions are shattered and the reader remembers the pain of losing naivete.  It is as much about growing up as it is about solving a mystery.  The weird world of adulthood is much more mysterious.

Resort and spa town of Bad Munstereifel. ("Bad" means "bath.")

Pia is far from perfect -- she is still learning, after all -- but she is extraordinarily heartfelt and endearing.  She is a reminder to speak up when it is important, and go your own way if no one listens.  They'll catch up.

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Thank you to the folks at Bantam / Random House for the review copy.

Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Bantam (April 26, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 038534418X
ISBN-13: 978-0385344180

REVIEW: IN THE GARDEN OF BEASTS by Erik Larson

For more than a decade now Erik Larson has been digging up episodes lost to history and bringing them to the forefront.  In Issac's Storm, he revealed a fledgling National Weather Service and recounted a hurricane of horrifying magnitude in 1900.  With The Devil In The White City, he pitted the very best and very worst of human nature against each other as the collided in the 1893 World's Fair Chicago.  In Thunderstruck, Larson followed the development of Trans-Atlantic communication, Marconi and a killer who was caught using the new invention.  

In all of these, Larson seeks to present a time that was a turning-point in history.  His newest, In The Garden Of Beasts, elucidates some of the everyday life in Berlin at the beginning of Hitler's regime.  Larson's main thesis seems to be that if hindsight is 20/20, then the circumstances surround Third Reich Germany were not only short-sighted, but blurred as well.  

The Dodd Family disembarks in Hamburg, 1933

The book focuses on the US Ambassador to Germany, William Dodd.  He accepted the post from President Roosevelt in 1933 and moved to Berlin, bringing his family along -- Wife Martha (Mattie), son Bill, and daughter Martha.  A professor at the University of Chicago, he was hardly the obvious choice (though he had studied in Leipzig years before and spoke German fluently).  He was not a politician, or wealthy.  He was rather looking forward to a quiet retirement on his Virginia farm to reenact his Jeffersonian philosophy and finish writing his monumental history of The Old South. Yet it seems his desire to leave a greater mark overcame his initial leanings and he settled into working at Bendlerstrasse 39, near the famed Tiergarten.  

The US Embassy at the time of Dodd's service

Dodd struggled from all angles.  He was put in the impossible situation of collecting exorbitant reparations from Germany, owed from the Treaty of Versailles; he eschewed the typically ornate and grand lifestyle of a European ambassador; he was constantly deflecting negative comments from his own State Department; and he was trying to decipher just what was going on in the new German government.  How could anyone, let alone a professor untrained in diplomacy, be expected to predict what was to come?

Ambassador Dodd at his desk, a far cry from the simplicity he craved

There were inklings of political unrest, often explored by Larson through the eyes of daughter Martha who seemed to have little discrimination in choosing her lovers or even her casual dates.  Her beaus included Rudolph Diels, head of the Gestapo in '33 and '34; Ernst Udets, a high-placed Luftwaffe officer; Louis Ferdinand, the Prince of Prussia; Ernst Hanfstaengl, an aide to Adolf Hitler; and Boris Vinogradov, a Soviet intelligence (KGB) official.  Based on her owns accounts, she was both excited by the adventure of it all, and oblivious to the true underpinnings of the Reich.  

A jet-setting Martha Dodd

Indeed, even Americans were doubtful of the reports that made their way across the Atlantic.  Incidents, at first, were sporadic and seemingly random -- and quickly quelled with an official apology from the government.  They were written off as growing pains experienced by every revolutionary movement.  Yet just under this peaceful facade boiled a caustic formula that was to disfigure half of the world.  

Title page of Dodd's diary, complied by his children.  One of Larson's main sources.

Larson again uses primary sources for his research as well as archived diplomatic documents and old maps to recreate the Berlin of the early 1930s.  The voices of his subjects come through very vividly.  What is somewhat lacking is the sense of tension present in his previous books.  I think this comes mainly from the fact that we, as modern readers, are completely ignorant on his topics.  In this case, although I knew nothing about the Dodds and their milieu, I was certainly very familiar with the time and knew what was to come.  Somehow, being aware of this made their story less shocking or revealing.  Of all of those involved, Martha is the most fascinating.  Her naivete is stunning and I wish the book focused on her even more, though I imagine there was less extant resources regarding her.  

Still, Larson has once again resurrected a story that proves truth is stranger than fiction. 

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On Sale: May 10, 2011

Pages: 464 | ISBN: 978-0-307-40884-6

Thanks to the folks at Crown Publishing for the advance reader's copy.