Punishments

In "Punishments" at one point the narrator tells of "...an incident which, to this day, still both puzzles me with its sense of things unacknowledged and even unknown, and infuriates me with its sense of opportunity lost." I would suggest reading this short novel with that quote in mind. Much of the beauty in this book is the main character's struggle to understand his situation - and his lack of power over how he was manipulated. He continues to yearn for his first love, a man who toyed with him, even after many years of subsequent marriage, which he considers a shame. He feels he is "...partaking of a sacrament of a religion in which I can never do more than pretend..." He was, unbenownst to him, a punisher, and one who is punished. It's worth keeping in mind another quote: "One of the best ways to punish people is to show them what they are." Why is he made to suffer? Why are others cruel, what drives some to dominate, others to be sacrificial lambs? What exactly happened in Germany, and who knew what? Why do people punish themselves? Not everything is clearly understood by the last page - like life. But the walk through the fog, and the occasional bump into sudden revelations makes for a wonderful read. On a different note, being from Canada, I found myself having to look up many bits of British slang. But, if you have an Oxford Dictionary at hand, you'll be fine! Not exactly an easy book, but a good one.

In 1981 Michael Gregg, the narrator recalls two weeks in 1948 when as an undergraduate he was one of a group of English students visiting Hildingen, Germany, to take part in an Anglo-German summer school, with the aim of paving the way for improved relations between the two recently warring nations. The German students taking part accommodate the English students in their homes or lodgings. Michael, along with fellow student Mervyn, stays with Jürgen Koestan, a tall, muscular and strikingly handsome fair-haired German who favours extraordinarily short shorts. While immediately taken with him, Michael is confused about his feelings for Jürgen, and even more so when the apparently actively heterosexual Jürgen seduces him, and by the enigmatic Jürgen's subsequent behaviour. However the story is about much more than Michaels' seduction at the hands of Jürgen. Throughout there is the constant play of relationships between the students, and anyone who has been part of a similar group will surely recognise the feelings of uncertainty, the jealousies and vying for position and friendship typical of such a group. The deplorable post war conditions are well depicted. So too are the sensitivity of feelings between the Germans and English, both through their discussions and their reactions to the war-torn German landscape. Yet the story seems to lack any real direction, the conclusion seeming particularly vague leaving one asking the question why? what is the point? what is the connection of events in 1948 to Michael's life in 1981? On the positive side, it is a true pleasure to read being free from the grammatical errors so common in much writing today, no prissy misuse of pronouns, no confusion of plurals or wrongly applied apostrophes or other gaffs, for that alone it is well worth reading. The beautiful drawing on the dust jacket by Michael Leonard is an added bonus.