Martin Mosebach the Novelist – Part I

Westend

By Martin Mosebach

( Rowohlt Verlag, Hamburg 2019)

New Edition, 895 pages

Most readers of this blog are well acquainted with Martin Mosebach, internationally perhaps the most tireless advocate of traditional Catholicism. Yet Martin Mosebach’s day job is primarily that of novelist. In fact, he is one of Germany’s leading practitioners of that genre. Yet as far as I am aware only one of his novels has been translated into English: What was before (2010; English translation 2014). To remedy this defect, I’d like to bring to your attention two of his most remarkable works – one first published 30 years ago, another in 2021.

What is the connection between Martin Mosebach’s faith and his novels? He has specifically rejected any understanding of the role of the Catholic novelist as that of an explicit advocate for the Catholic Church and its clergy. In his novels there are no conversions, deathbed or otherwise, and no visions or miracles either. In fact, he has written of his dislike for the conversion of Lord Marchmain at the conclusion of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. Yet he maintains that he is a Catholic novelist – but that means a novelist having a Catholic sensibility which informs all his writings. Now especially a novelist must start his work with what he sees about him. Martin Mosebach is the product of an overwhelmingly non-Catholic and even non-Christian environment. Similarly, I don’t recall that Flannery O’Connor, also the resident of a non-Catholic culture – if one very different from that of Martin Mosebach – included many Catholics in her writings.

Westend , a 1992 novel, deals with Mosebach’s own country, city, and people. The title is the name of a late 19th century neighborhood in Frankfurt. This district of splendid mansions and townhouses enjoyed its golden age prior to the First World War. Then came the chaos of inflation in the 1920s, the exile or worse suffered by the large Jewish community in the 1930s, and the allied bombing in the 1940s (which, however, largely spared the Westend). After World War II the once wealthy area endured further traumatizing changes in economics and direction. The grand houses were subdivided into apartments or even workshops. There was even a descent into a red-light district for a few years. Individual buildings were torn down or endured the “simplification” of their facades and decoration. All the while visions swirled among real estate speculators, politicians and city planners of leveling the Westend entirely and building a totally modern district of offices and apartment buildings. But at the end of the day this did not happen.  Starting at the 1970s the value of these buildings was recognized and that part of the Westend that had not been destroyed was placed under architectural preservation. And today it flourishes once again as a luxury residential area.

Now in this novel the Westend is dominated by certain patently symbolic images. The bombed-out Christuskirche with its empty Gothic windows serves as the visual and spiritual focus of the neighborhood. For God is no longer here – in the course of this book we learn that His presence had become attenuated even before World War I. Over the facade of the nearby natural history museum stands a figure of Chronos (time) – or of Death – with hourglass and scythe. Within the houses of the neighborhood themselves we encounter paintings and furnishings which serve to anchor and link the succeeding phases of the novel. 

The saga of the Westend reminds me of a place very familiar to me – Brooklyn, New York. There too, relatively intact neighborhoods built between 1865 and 1900 survive, like Park Slope, much of Brooklyn Heights, Clinton Hill, and more besides. They also, if on a somewhat different timeline and sometimes in a much more drastic fashion, went through a cycle like that experienced by the Westend: splendor in the 1890s, decline, as the 20^th century advanced, into apartments for the middle classes and in some places even into outright slums, followed, starting in the 1970s, by the rediscovery of these attractive streetscapes.  Now, the “brownstones” (as they are generically known) of these gentrified districts are among the most desirable dwellings in New York City.

Westend is set against the background of Frankfurt in the 1950’s and 60’s. Now Frankfurt, as I mentioned, is traditionally a very Protestant town – historically a free “Imperial City.” Yet even though the Reformation had triumphed in Frankfurt, a Catholic minority flourished under the protection of the nearby Elector (prince-bishop) of Mainz. In the 18^th century the Catholic house of Thurn und Taxis ran the postal system of the Holy Roman Empire out of Frankfurt.  In those same years the Catholic Brentano family rose to prominence – Clemens Brentano, the Romantic poet and champion of Anna Catherina Emmerich, was their most distinguished representative. And some of the main churches of Frankfurt remained in Catholic hands, above all the “Imperial Cathedral” of St Bartholomew’s, where the Holy Roman Emperor was elected, and, from the 16^th century onward, crowned in magnificent ceremonies. 

Mosebach refers frequently to the historical context in which his story takes place. His understanding of German history is vastly more subtle and profound than the simple dichotomy of evil Nazis and good modernity that governs thought in Germany today. Yet Westend is in no way a detailed social and political treatise on life in Frankfurt between 1950 and 1968. The author provides only such information that is relevant to his characters’ story. Key details – such as the exact date of certain events or the age of some of the main characters – is only given far into the novel or not at all. This creates now and then a feeling of timelessness.

The narrative of Westend begins after World War II in which the medieval city center of Frankfurt had been utterly destroyed. The novel tells of two families and two houses in the Westend. The first, the Labontés, are the heirs of the owner of a former grand wine, cigar and gourmet food business. Two maiden aunts manage the family’s ornate old mansion which has survived the war intact. The interior is crammed with magnificent pre-1914 furnishings and seems shrouded in a perpetual twilight or half-darkness. The household is run with proverbial German thoroughness and order by these aunts. A ne’er-do-well son of the family regrettably seems entirely lacking in admirable qualities but exits the novel early, leaving behind a son, Alfred Labonté. Since his mother also died young, his two aunts must take charge of his upbringing. 

The second family – the Olenschlägers, represented by Eduard Has, has had a totally different experience. Their old home was bombed out in the war. But thanks to clever investments by Eduard’s mother, their fortune has survived intact. Eduard was able to ride out the war in Switzerland thanks to his posting to one such family-controlled company which, we gather, was of significance to the German war effort. Eduard thereby avoided the unpleasantness of the war years in Germany: the deportations, the bombing, the fighting, captivity or death at the hands of the Allies. He returns to Frankfurt committed to modernity. Has sets out to create a grand collection of German expressionist art. The ruins of the old family mansion will be replaced by a six-story apartment building. And the new building will be crowned by a stark glass penthouse in which he can dwell with his collections. All this activity is underwritten by his family’s firm which harbors dreams of totally rebuilding Frankfurt and plunges into the speculative real estate boom of the post-war years.

Eduard Has thus is representative of the higher bourgeoisie of Frankfurt and West Germany after the Second World War: conformist, anxious to be considered modern but driven by the need for self-display of earlier generations. Utterly lacking in judgment, vacillating and indecisive, he allows himself to be dominated in his choice of art and architecture by advisors who seek their own advantage. His morals are also extremely fluid – he collects other men’s wives as easily as he does pre-World War I expressionists. He does have great – perhaps excessive – affection, however, for his daughter Lilly.

We see his grand new house and gallery take shape. Of course, like all modern art, his rooftop residence is stark and bare. It also is totally inappropriate for the city’s weather conditions and as a dwelling for the family. The sun blazes in without hindrance. It is hard to find one’s way round the rooms given their arrangement and frequent mirrors. The specially designed furniture is impractical. Smells from cooking in an apartment in the basement waft up to the 6th floor. It is the greatest possible contrast to the comfortable old Labonté mansion of 1897!

Alfred Labonté is now growing up in the atmospheric surroundings of the latter house.  Although Martin Mosebach has denied any autobiographical angle to this book, Alfred seems from an early age to be endowed with insights regarding his house, his neighborhood and art far more sophisticated and perceptive than anything Eduard ever expresses.  Moreover, Alfred is raised as a Catholic, if only in a perfunctory manner, due to the obligation his aunts feel they owe to his dead mother. Other than the case of several minor characters, Alfred’s Catholicism is unique in the world of Westend.

Alfred early appreciates the ornate Victorian decorations of the facades and railings of the neighboring townhouses. Although he does not fully understand it, he is drawn to the beauty of the Catholic Mass (see the passage below). He experiences a spiritual vision of the Westend one evening in which the entire neighborhood seems ordered to, and subsumed into, a blazing sunset behind the ruined Christuskirche. But especially he is drawn to the 19^th century paintings (of a “Victorian” local artistic school) on the walls of the LaBonte mansion, especially one specific work: The Departure of the Knight of Cronberg for the Holy Land, in which a crusader from the vicinity of Frankfurt bids farewell to his lady. The work fascinates the young Alfred and he gradually comes to see himself in the role of the knight, and Eduard Has’s daughter Lilly as his lady.

Yet, like life itself, there are many twists and turns to the novel.  Both Alfred and Lilly stray from their apparent destiny, handicapped by their superficial education and weighed down by the “sins of the fathers.” Meanwhile Eduard Has continues his triumphant career, managing his wife, his mistress, his artistic and architectural influencers (as we would call them today), the people in his family firm who in fact control his business as well as a variety of colorful local characters. Externally it is a life of grand success: due to his collection of art, he and his wife receive upper society’s accolades, prestigious memberships and coveted invitations. His firm meanwhile is developing a grand plan to raze and totally rebuild the Westend to be an exemplary modernistic district – perhaps like La Defense outside of Paris.

(Above and below) In a dream Eduard Has sees, in the midst of a horrifying infernal landscape, two black marble busts of him and his mistress. He reads in bronze letters under his image NIHIL and under that of his mistresss UMBRA. Was Mosebach inspired by the white marble busts of the far more pious Altieri family in the Church of St Maria in Campitelli in Rome?

Mosebach writes in clear, “classical” prose, now elegant and sophisticated, now using colloquial speech. The analysis of what is going on the minds of the protagonists can be at times extraordinarily detailed. But Mosebach also draws on other techniques. He constantly accompanies and illustrates his story with symbols and images drawn from art, nature and Catholic tradition. The narrative switches abruptly again and again from one character and location to another without warning – one must keep reading carefully! Information is frequently laid out in a nonlinear manner:  details foreshadow events only occurring later in the novel, while other incidents are only fully described much later than their first appearance. At times the author hints that he (and apparently one or two of the novel’s characters as well) are gazing back at these events from a point in the future – which must be 1992. 

And, opera-like, the discursive “recitative” of the characters’ mental states, conversations and comings and goings is interrupted with startling effect by great visual “set pieces.” For example, Alfred’s father rows a boat dreamily down the river Main (on which Frankfurt is located) – and sees a murdered infant floating towards him. Eduard has a long emotional dialogue with his Swiss dealer in which both explore the nature of collecting art.  Both Alfred and Eduard have extended, revelatory dreams. In a heart-rending sequence of scenes, Alfred experiences the greatest grief at the sudden death of a beloved aunt – all the more traumatizing for him since she had suffered a disabling stroke at her own birthday party which he had disdained attending. Alfred is not comforted when he is told how fortunate his aunt was to have a “merciful’ and “peaceful” death.  

For Alfred felt the horror of a sudden and unprepared death expressed in the petition in the litany – long forgotten by him: a subitanea et improvisa morte libera nos domine. (pp. 722-23)

There follows a forceful depiction of a nonreligious “ceremony” for his aunt in a crematorium where a “pastor” delivers a bizarre, half-philosophical, half-pagan sermon. Amid this oppressive spiritual desolation, Alfred realizes that this entire “ceremony” is the greatest insult to his dead aunt. 

But Eduard must face a day of reckoning. His company has overextended itself financially and its plans for the Westend are thwarted – apparently by a political switch in favor of the budding historical preservation movement. Eduard discovers to his horror that, like Madame Bovary, he “has signed too much paper.”  The management of his own company pushes Eduard to the brink of financial ruin, his wife finally deserts him, his paintings are removed to the vault until the legal situation is resolved, and he must return to people he has come to despise. His world having collapsed, Eduard can only look forward to a meaningless void.  In his deserted penthouse, only his daughter Lilly remains.

Alfred’s world too has turned upside down after his aunt’s death. As Mosebach has subtly pointed out to us now and then earlier in the novel, the aunts’ commitment to German tradition – symbolized by their venerable residence and its contents – is only the product of superficial habit. The surviving aunt brings in a television, substitutes snacking on “health food” for the substantial, regularly served mealtimes of the past, auctions off the entire contents of the Labonté house and finally moves out entirely. The painting of the Knight of Cronberg is donated to the Frankfurt art museum, where, we are told, it resided in the vault for many years. Alfred is left alone in a small room amid the empty and deserted spaces of the LaBonte residence – which he in fact has ended up owning. But his fate then takes a different turn from Eduard’s. He finally comes to realize who he is, and that he is destined in some mysterious way for Lilly. And the next day he in fact receives an imploring call from her – besieged in her rooftop home by one of her father’s consultants. Like the Knight of Cronberg so familiar to him, Alfred resolutely advances to her rescue. 

What happens next, we are not told.

So, can we say Westend is a “Catholic” novel? It certainly testifies eloquently that “God is not here.”  But many great novelists have made the point that God is absent in the modern world, without thereby necessarily being considered Catholic. We have to look for additional indicia of a Catholic sensibility. Mosebach shows in this work a great appreciation of the intrinsic value of things, of history and of people – even those individuals for whom he otherwise lacks sympathy. He admires that which has organically developed, in contrast to the modernist ideal of a clear break with the past; he supports reality against ideological dreams. He detests phonies and manipulators. Like Dostoevsky, he does not fear to assert the importance of beauty to life. I already mentioned this book’s numerous liturgical and spiritual references. But for me, Mosebach in this book conveys a definite sense that there is an underlying providential will present in this world.  We usually perceive it only dimly or in fragments.  We are free to reject its promptings.  But is not such an affirmation preeminently Catholic?

Alfred and the Mass. (from Westend at pp. 254-255)

by Martin Mosebach

In the half year (of his preparation for First Communion) Alfred had been overwhelmed with impressions, but he had no vessels to capture the overwhelming riches. He was sprinkled with Holy Water before Mass began; he saw the pyramids of candles on the altar, the many white, lace trimmed altar cloths, the entrance of the priest in brocaded vestments and the black biretta with the black pompom on his head. He saw the deep bows, the prayers whispered while the congregation sang loudly and drowned out the words spoken at the altar. Alfred heard the language, foreign, musical and full of vowels, in which he later learned to navigate very assuredly. He heard the chanting of the priests, which ran like a creek snaking through a landscape without any restrictive rhythm, like water, which avoids obstacles, which sometimes is still, sometimes overflows, then in a thin jet falls one step lower and finally flows wide and gently. Alfred heard the little bells, at whose signal everyone dropped to his knees; he saw the cruets with water and wine which were brought up to the altar; he saw the tiny spoon with which the priest took a drop of water for the chalice, he smelled the incense, the fresh aroma of the first burning grains and the heavy clouds  which had something of the odor of burnt sugar and which hung about in the front of the church towards the end of the Solemn Mass.. He saw the swinging thurible, the brief washing of the hands from the elegant water cruet and the fine white towel, hardly bigger than a handkerchief. Then came silence, the whispering at the altar, then the church bells began to ring, and the little handbells as well, and then there hovered above the head of the priest a small white disk. Alfred could never get used to the idea that this was bread since the white disk had nothing to do with the bread that he ate at breakfast.

Alfred’s extraordinary, profound emotion prevented him from understanding what he had beheld with the greatest amazement. After the Te Deum of the Corpus Christi procession Toddi Olsten (Alfred’s friend in school) observed that it really was first class. “My father says that nobody can equal the Church in this kind of production. Organ and bells together – it’s a terrific effect….” (Alfred) never would have had the idea of calling ringing the bells during the great hymn as a “terrific effect.” He excluded the possibility that calculation was at work here – everything happened the way in which it had to be done. What happened escaped his understanding, but it was obviously beyond any arbitrariness which would allow one to speak of a “production.” Given his temperament he could have grown into the liturgy of his Church without any difficulties. But for this he would have needed steady direction – in other words, education – just as the Church once understood her cult as a life-long education. But there was nobody who took up the education of Alfred beyond that provided by his aunts….