They are descendants of Greenlanders and islanders. Their houses have stood for centuries, their craft has fed generations. But in times of climate change, tourism and EU regulations, it is difficult not to become a small player in a vanished world.
Dörte Hansen said of her first two novels "Altes Land" and "Mittagsstunden" that they are about "home and belonging". The same can be said about her latest book "Zur See". Once again, the bestselling author has succeeded in finding another subject in the vastness of northern Germany.
Jens, Hanne, Ryckmer, Eske and Henrik Sander are the descendants of Greenlanders, real island people, maybe on Föhr, Sylt or Fanø, Hansen doesn't commit himself to that. Only the sea is clearly the North Sea in its incomparable beauty as well as rough ruthlessness. However, there can be no question of a family idyll on this island.
"All islands attract people who have wounds, rashes on their skin and soul. Those who can no longer breathe properly or no longer believe, who have been abandoned or have abandoned someone. And the sea should then fix it, and the wind should blow, until it doesn't hurt anymore." (From "At Sea")
Jens, the former captain, has retired into the solitude of bird watching, leaving his wife Hanne and the centuries-old captain's house with the whalebone fence to the summer guests. Hanne got used to waiting many years ago, waiting for men to come home, waiting for paying guests, grateful children or the next storm surge.
The children are long grown and lead their own lives. Ryckmer, the eldest, has a drinking problem. He drinks, also to forget how he lost his composure in a storm at sea. Hanne allots him the beer and, drunk, scrapes him off the street, but on his days off she lets him drink and rant. About Kaventsmann, monster waves and the white wall, which only he knows he survived but defeated him anyway.
Eske, the middle one, bears a grudge against her mother for the long summers in which she spoke "guessingly", bathers lived in her children's room and she slept with her brothers in the attic. Nothing can reconcile her, even if she is full of forbearance with the people she cares for in the old people's home and accompanies them when they die. And Henrik, the youngest, lives in his very own world with the beach finds that become sculptures in his hands. Women don't last long in this world, but he doesn't seem to mind as long as he has the beach and what the sea carries there.
“Nothing vertical is permanent in this landscape, not the churches, not the concrete sins, not even the trees. There is nothing permanent here. Everything here wants to be horizon." (From "At Sea")
The EU officials, who set catch quotas from which the fishermen can no longer live and the tourists who are no longer bathers and who can feel like part of the family for a few summer weeks, see nothing of all this. For these "short vacationers and captain's house buyers" the island people are like bit actors in a production. And while it's hard to find a clearer image of change than the ebb and flow, the worn sand and the weathered boats, change is something the islands don't particularly like.
Hansen mentions them in passing, the home sales, the construction projects, the new business models replacing centuries-old jobs, the breakups and deaths. In occasional flashbacks, times long gone come alive as more times pass.
"The laws of the injured probably apply on all islands: never be friendly to tourists. Don't smile. Don't chat with them. Answer their questions in monosyllables at most. Because you don't have to kiss the hand that feeds you." (From "At Sea")
Nina Hoss was the author's first choice to voice the audiobook. Hannelore Hoger had read the previous titles. And although Hoss has nothing North German in her pronunciation, not even a hint of Low German in her sentences, no particularly long E, no rolled R, she manages to make Hansen's sentences sound North German. There seems to be a coldness in her sentences, a clanging sound as if ice floes were colliding. Laconically, without any particular excitement, Hoss strings together sentence after sentence until the unexpectedly dramatic end of the seven hours or 250 pages.
Hansen writes with precision right into the corners of the soul of her supporting characters. And despite this, or perhaps because of this, her book could be like the tourists who photograph the old captains' houses and stuff fisherman's shirts and rock candy into their linen bags: they buy the book in the island bookshop, read it on a hazy day, leave it afterwards back to their vacation rental and then imagine they've gotten a totally authentic view of the island. It's not their home and it's not where they belong.
