Thursday, May 26, 2016

Hausfrau

Author: Jill Alexander Essbaum
Publisher: Penguin Random House, 2015
My Source: Louisville Free Public Library



"Anna was a good wife, Mostly." 

That is the first sentence of Hausfrau, a novel about the downfall of Anna Benz, a 37 year-old housewife, mother, and American expat living in a suburb of Zurich, Switzerland. Nine years prior, Anna met and married Swiss born Bruno Benz. Shortly thereafter, Bruno took a managerial position at Cedit Suisse and they moved to his hometown in Switzerland.

Unhappy in her marriage and isolated in a foreign country, Anna seeks out a psychoanalyst at the suggestion of her husband. Anna is guarded in her sessions, evades questions, and lies by omission. The psychoanalyst encourages Anna to take German language classes so she can communicate better with the locals. In class, she meets a Scotsman and begins an illicit affair with him. The reader finds out that this is not Anna's first affair, nor her last.

One day a family tragedy strikes while Anna is away with one of her lovers. Anna's world is turned upside down after that.

The parts depicting the psychoanalyst are interesting and correspond with Anna's circumstances, but are fictional. From what I learned about psychoanalysis in graduate school, the analyst does not generally answer existential questions from the patient. Typically, strict analysts say very little and when they do speak they ask open-ended questions of the patient. Also, they do not offer specific analysis of dreams because dreams are open to the patient's interpretation. Jungian psychoanalysis is very different from general psychotherapy in which the therapist takes a more active role.

One aspect that was interesting to me was the way the author combined the German language lessons with the ways Anna was feeling and the ways she saw others in her life.


          This is basic, class. Present tense. That which happens now. Future tense.
          What will occur. Simple past: what was done. Present perfect?
          What has been done.
          But how often is the past simple? Is the present ever perfect?
          Anna stopped listening. These were rules she didn't trust.


While I enjoyed this book, I also found it quite sad. Sad does not automatically equal bad, but it did equal only 3 out of 5 high fives from me. Bruno is distant and unsympathetic to Anna's plight. Anna is dissatisfied with her life and compulsively uses sex as a way of distracting herself from her boredom and depression. She lacks adequate coping mechanisms, but then it wouldn't be a very interesting story if she did.


                                                         Rating: 3 out of 5 high fives


2 comments:

  1. The ending of this book stuck with me for months. It was so easy to recall after reading your excellent review. The book was so tragic. And it was one of like three in five books that I read with similar endings. I'd agree with the 3/5. :-) Good but not great.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete