Nicht die ganze Wahrheit by Dirk Kurbjuweit (review)

I EXPEDITIONS Edward Stone, who, having buried his beloved wife, aims for a rec onciliation with his estranged son; and the expedition party's mixed blood guide, thebeautiful, alluring, and enigmatic Susette. Two other memorable characters that enrich the narrative are Jonah Crawley, a charlatan who early on amusingly dupes Stone; and his fiance, Adele, a teenage "spiritual medium" whose clairvoyance is almost believable. The heart of the story, however, is Elisha's search for his own iden tity.Naively believing in both of his mentors, Brush and Tiffin, and driven on by his insatiable desire for knowledge and adventure, he follows themand theirpursuits into Michigan's upper peninsula, along the south shore of Lake Michigan, throughevery brand of hardship, to the inevitable disillusion thateven tually comes. Along the way he falls in lovewith themysterious Susette, discovers theAchilles heels of both adventurers, and reencounters his estranged father. Iagnemma's powerful prose is a perfect instrument fordescribing the frontierterrainof 1844, from the vibrant city of Detroit to the rug ged shore of Lake Superior, with its physical hardships, indigenous tribes,and the treacheryand duplic ityof some of those trekkingacross it.Elisha thoughtfullyabsorbs itall, maturing as he grows into a man of insight and integrity,although he is haunted by his sense of failure in his relationship with his father. Karl Iagnemma's writing often dis closes an interestingphilosophical and even theological bent, as his characters contemplate some of life's more perplexing mysteries. The Expeditionsisa dazzling first novel?one that this reviewer hopes will be followed bymany more. Marvin J. LaHood Amherst, New York DirkKurbjuweit. Nichtdie ganzeWahr heit. Zurich. Nagel & Kimche. 2008. 220 pages. 19.90. isbn 978-3-312 00410-2 Dirk Kurbjuweit's recent novel is something of a "Krimi," a mystery, but much more as well. It is nar rated by detective Arthur Koenen, who at thebeginning is "casing" an apartment house in the wee hours of the morning. Once he's broken into the apartment, he's also able to break into the target's computer and access her e-mail. Here the plot thickens: itssubjects include promi nent politicians in the new capital (Kurbjuweit is Berlin bureau chief fortheSpiegel). The woman whose apartment he's broken into, Anna Taubert, is a young, brand-new member of par liament.She ishaving an affair with the leader of theparty inpower, Leo Schilf, the chancellor's right-hand man. Mrs. Schilf had hired Koenen, based on her suspicion about her husband's affair.While Schilf and most others in the party support the chancellor's proposal to reduce certain healthcare benefits, Taubert views it as the "dismantling of the welfare state." (This clearly refers to the lastSPD administration.) Investigating such affairs had become Koenen's specialty, though he'd originally envisioned more glamorous fields such as corporate crime and industrial espionage. But he does have a steady contract, with the zoo, to cut down on the pickpockets who take advantage of people distracted by frolickinghip popotami and such. In addition to a regular small income, thishas netted him a side benefit.He had nabbed a young woman trying to snatch a purse, but her story of having just escaped her prostitution-ring captorswho'd shanghaied her from Lithuania convinced him to lether go. She soon looks him up, and, in addition to domestic services in bet terneighborhoods, she takes care of his cleaning and sexual needs. Our detective succeeds in find ing even more incriminating infor mation about Schilf, but I won't spoil that for themystery fan and DIRK KURBJUWEIT NICHT DIE GANZE WAHRHEIT ROMAN > I * I z I W I * I P I < I * I H H H D I * I o I * I hint, instead, at some of the other ramifications of thework of Kurb juweit's detective. At the outset he claims to be after "Wahrheit/' but what he offers his clients is, rath er, "Wahrscheinlichkeit." For these wronged women, he sees himself as presenting "not the whole truth," as Kurbjuweit's titlehas it,but a veri similitude that, for example, por trays their husbands' relationships as "mere sex," not love, a more manageable truth. Justas the relationship between Schilf and Taubert is another vari ant on (sexual) politics as usual, our detective's work is policymak ing within conventionally acceptable bounds. By exposing philandering husbands, he preserves stable mar riages. To do this,thedetective, like the novelist, creates fictions that are both credible and thoroughly enjoy able reading. UlfZimmermann Kennesaw State University Jhumpa Lahiri. Unaccustomed Earth. New York. Knopf. 2008. 333 pages. $25. isbn978-0-307-26573-9 Unaccustomed Earth is Jhumpa Lahiri's second collection of short stories,and her thirdbook. Her first collection of stories, Interpreterof Maladies (2000),won her thePulitzer and her second book, TheNamesake (2003), a novel, was made into a filmbyMira Nair in 2007. In Unac customedEarth,Lahiri offersus eight stories that continue her examination of expatriate Bengalis abroad (main ly in theU.S.) and thatof theirchil dren. Some of her characters break the rules and what is expected of them, others find themselves return inggratefully to familiar,prescribed terrain,particularly in the realm of marriage. These are contemporary tales thattake many modern realities into account, including the increas ingly multi-ethnic characterof lifein the U.S. and the dilemmas first-gen eration children of immigrants face. Lahiri's stories appeal because shemarries theexperiences of these generally educated, ambitious, and upwardly mobile Bengalis with familiar and often successful sym bols of the "American dream." In thisway thepristine lawns of prep schools and Ivy League colleges, Roman cafes, libraries, and remote New England and Thai coastlines serve as attractive backdrops to these portraits of individual struggles to findmeaning and happiness. On thewhole, Lahiri's perspective and focus is lavished on her Bengali and Bengali American characters rather than on the non-Indians. There are the usual intergen erational struggles of parents trying to keep their children in the fold of Bengali convention while at the same timenegotiating thebenefitsof thepossibilities offeredby anAmer ican education?despite the dangers of life in theU.S., which sometimes proves devastating for individual characters. This is the case in the weakest story of the lot, "Uncom mon Good," inwhich the brother isunable to live up tohis potential. In "A Choice of Accommodation," Lahiri explores the tensionsbetween a bicultural couple and the cement thatholds them together. At other times,Lahiri switches her attention to elders. In the first story, "Unaccustomed Earth," which gives the collection its title,a father worries about his daughter getting upset about his developing bond with another Indian woman, after thedeath ofhis first wife, hermoth er, even though she has married a non-Indian and is making a new life forherself and her son in faraway Seattle. In the final trilogy,"Hema and Kaushik," Kaushik's father remarries a much more traditional and less strikingwoman, after his mother's death. "Hema and Kaushik" is the book's gem, strong and wellcrafted. The tautnessof the tale in itsentirety isdazzling, even though atmoments Lahiri veers into cinematographic shorthand, with the inclusion of recent international tragedies that give the storyan epic sweep. Again Lahiri shows a gift for storytelling and conjuring a variety of scenar ios and outcomes. Her characters' dialogue is credible, as are their aspirations, even if at times they seem a bit pretentious. Sometimes she also delves into those hidden places we all have, regardless of nationality and upbringing, which define our most compartmentalized selves. Lahiri has created a world thatnot only exemplifies thespecific variations of the Bengali expatriate and first-generation experience in the U.S. but also shows the diffi cult allegiances and choicesmany of their counterparts from other back grounds also have tomake. CatherineRend?n Savannah, Georgia UNACCUSTOMED EARTH JHUMPA LAHIRI IUI \ AM YS \K 1 IIIIIIIIIIIIIMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIM 68 i WorldLiterature Today ^^^H ...