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Peter Stamm: Ungefähre Landschaft (Unformed Landscape)
The German title means something like approximate landscape though, as you can see very experienced translator Michael Hofmann has turned it into Unformed Landscape. Other languages have varied approaches – French has random, Italian uncertain, Spanish and Norwegian approximate while Dutch has cleverly copped out and gone for Kathrine, the name of the main character. Czech has A Landscape of Random Living which I rather like. In short it is one of those clever titles which are suitably vague and do not tell you what the book is about.
Unlike most of his books, this novel is not set in Stamm’s native Switzerland but in Norway and, specifically in that remote part of Norway that borders Russia.
Our heroine is Kathrine from that area who has never been South of the Arctic Circle. She is part Sámi on her father’s side. She has been married to Helge but they are now divorced. They have a son but the boy seems to spend ,much of his time with his maternal grandmother. Kathrine works as a customs officer snd becomes friendly with a few of the regular visitors, particularly the captain of a Russian ship, Alexander. Like many of the people in this book he will disappear from her life and, in his case, disappear all together.
She starts another relationship, with Thomas. Thomas belongs to a close-knit family that considers itself superior to everyone else in the area and that includes Kathrine. They make it clear that she should consider herself very fortunate to have Thomas, particularly as she is divorced and has a child. Thomas shares this view. He has a lot of achievements – Ph.D., well travelled, fluent in five languages, a champion swimmer,, black belt in a martial art. Twice a week he runs the ten kilometres to the airport and back. He is also Helge’s boss. He moves in to her flat but gradually replaces all her things, such as furniture and utensils, with what he considers far superior ones.
Kathrine has two other male friends. She has known Morten since school and it was thought that would get together but when it looked likely, either one or the other had someone else. However they remain friends. Christian was from Aarhus but travelled around installing equipment for fish factories. While he is in Kathrine’s village, they become friends, and stay in touch by email.
Things go wrong with Thomas. They have no sex life and she gradually finds that all his great achievements are fictitious. She has a one-off fling with Morten and soon receives a letter from Thomas’. family casting her out and accused her of bedhopping. All the furniture is removed. Initially she moves to the fisherman’s residence and then decides it is time to go. She withdraws her money and sets off to find Christian, leaving her son Randy with her mother. Harald, an official on the shipping line she knows offers her a bed in his house while his wife is away. She goes to Christian’s home in Aarhus and then when his mother gives her his current location she is off to Boulogne via Paris.
We follow her travels such as her wonderment at Paris and her reunion with Christian. He welcomes her but as a friend and clearly no more than a friend. He takes her to Paris and there they part as she has set off home. She has been disappointed. Kathrine felt disappointed. So many years she had been dreaming of a trip to the South. She had supposed that everything would be different south of the Arctic Circle.
“Everything was bigger and noisier, there were more people around, more cars on the streets. But she had hardly seen anything that she hadn’t seen at home or in Tromso .
On the way home she meets three Swedish women going on a skiing holiday. They have nothing but bad things to say about the men i their lives. “My husband lied to me, said Kathrine. “Everything he said to me was a lie.”
“They all do that,” said Linn. “You never know what you’re up against. and Men love. Women are loved. Hiwever at the resort the three Swedish women are looking for men. No men,” said Johanna. “Norway is just as shitty as Sweden..
She makes it back home. People ask her if she has been on holiday and she shows them photos of Paris. Thomas avoids her but his father has had a change of heart but Thomas is not the man for her.
In many respects this is a feminist novel. The main male characters are generally a disappointment or worse – her father, her two husbands, her second father-in-law, Christian, with only the minor male characters – Harald, Alexander, the Russian sea captain who disappears and her boss in her job in the Customs Office – redeeming the male sex.
A key theme seems to be that relationships are difficult and that includes romantic relationships, parent-child relationships and other relationships. The only ones that seem to work, at least as far asKathrine is concerned are what might be described as casual relationships.
Another key theme seems to be that people lie. This is, of course hardly an original or surprising idea but it is made forcefully here, particularly with Thomas’ lies though Kathrine has to admit that she has told her fair share of lies.
To sum up, Kathrine makes quite a few mistakes but we cannot help but have sympathy for her as she struggles, as many people do, to find out who she is and what she really wants to do with her life.
Publishing history
First published in 2001 by Arche Verla
First published in English in in 2005 by Other Books
Translated by Michael Hofmann