Die Richtige (The Right Girl)

by Martin Mosebach

2025, dtv, Munich.

Martin Mosebach’s recent novels tend to revolve around an underlying “clash of civilizations.” The inhabitants of Western Europe and specifically Germany are characterized as one-dimensional, manipulative, materialistic,  pleasure-loving, and scheming. The representatives of this European world encounter other regions, where there still exists awareness of the reality of life and death and of the spiritual realm, both in its good and evil aspects.  Mosebach has shown us visions of this more elemental world in present day India, in Egypt and Morocco  – but also even under the bright sunshine of Southern Italy.  The spiritual forces encountered may be positive (Das Beben, 2005) but also indifferent to hostile (Krass, 2021) or even demonic (Mogador, 2016).

In Die Richtige, Mosebach relocates the conflict of these antagonistic realms within the confines of one European city of our day.  For in this book the author returns to his hometown of Frankfurt to tell us the story of an artist.  Louis Creutz is a critically acclaimed painter. He is surrounded by some well-to-do groupies who have followed and facilitated his career. Coming into this circle is Astrid, a woman of Swedish background  – a kind of carefree, thirtysomething quasi-hippy.  Creutz,  whose artistic output so far has been an endless series of female nudes, seeks Astrid as his next model – and more besides. The plot of the novel revolves around this relationship. What starts as a series of leisurely discussions builds to an eventful, shattering climax. 

Die Richtige is an excellent read. The action moves at a brisk pace and the transitions from one section of the novel to the next are creative and surprising. Compared to other works by Mosebach,  the main characters have greater believability. The painter Creutz is early on identified as a somewhat sinister figure. There are, for example, repeated references to Mozart’s Don Giovanni in his regard. Yet Creutz has other sides to his character. In his appreciation of the effects of light in his studio or on a winter trip to Venice he reveals the sensitivity of a true artist. He comments on the marvelous patterns of a flock of pigeons in flight and discourses knowledgeably on the unique taste of fine aged Rhine wine. Similarly, Creutz’s entourage, including Astrid, are not (just) caricatures but real personalities. In contrast to the critical description of similar characters in Mosebach’s earlier novels they are portrayed as halfway sympathetic individuals.(At least with the exception of one academic biographer!)

Mosebach’s style is colorful and visual, full of striking images. The painter’s mysterious studio, described in language reminiscent of H.P. Lovecraft, occupies an isolated, rundown building surrounded by modern construction. We witness a dramatic wild boar hunt in the mountains near the city. A strangely dressed madwoman wanders about the town and intervenes at critical moments in the plot. A miscarriage is described in excruciating detail. The parks and gardens of this city become at night sinister locations where youths prowl who victimize the unwary – sometimes in ghastly ways.

Die Richtige, however, also has its satirical elements.  An example it contains of the preposterous writing of an art critic is precious. We learn that the life of a German entrepreneur in 2025 is that of a man constantly out of the country in order to run his business – for his company’s workforce is largely in China. Above all, Mosebach describes the incompetence and indifference of the “guardians of order” in today’s surveillance and therapeutic state. A character under investigation for murder escapes easily from the law enforcement authorities by giving a simple alibi. A team of three men – they need that many today? – chasing fare beaters on streetcars picks up a mentally ill woman who then is promptly dumped back on the street by the incompetent system. A woman suffering a miscarriage endures horrors under the care of supposed specialists. In Mosebach’s eyes, the Germany of 2025 is no longer an exemplar of competence – to put it mildly.

Need we mention that Christianity plays no role in this story? The most we can say is that Creutz eventually receives a lavish commission by a super wealthy private donor to paint a chapel in France. Characters comment on this strangeness of such a subject given what they  – and we –  know about the artist. But have we not read allegations of circumstances even stranger than those of this novel involving a certain church-approved artist in Italy?

But what then does Mosebach’s novel have to say about today’s world to the readers of a traditionalist blog? What is the “moral” of the story? Die Richtige is certainly not a didactic text. For Mosebach is of the opinion that the role of the Catholic novelist is not to preach or conjure up edifying Catholic “role models” but to bring a Catholic sensibility to the description of the world as it is. Indeed, it is Catholicism – or better, Catholic culture – that gives the novelist the capacity to apprehend and depict this reality.

Accepting that definition, Die Richtige portrays a fearsome picture of Europe in 2025, both physically and spiritually.  A society on the verge of collapse is held together by incompetent administrative, legal and medical bureaucracies. A world that is inhabited by pleasant, “nice” but superficial characters who are trying to find a way out of their tedium. The bureaucrats and businessman of modern society are attracted to a cult of the artistic creator who resides far above the gray life of the secular city. But as this novel shows, the world of spirit and of creativity also has its malevolent side.  Dark forces lurk and make their presence felt. Above all to people  – like the ladies and gentlemen of the upper middle class depicted in this novel –  who resolutely refuse to acknowledge their existence.

It is a pity that, as far as I am aware, only one of Martin Mosebach’s many novels (What was before, 2014) has been translated into English!