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I have a quote from author Stephan Mendel-Enk in my head that sometimes pops up when I think about it when writing novels: “It was important not to get caught up in telling the truth.”
He uttered those words in a GP interview in connection with the publication of his first novel, “Three Monkeys” from 2014. It was a simultaneously gripping and at times funny depiction of the raising of the boy Jacob in Jewish Gothenburg, which possibly based on some own experiences, but not yet. We got to know three generations of the same family, all of whom had very different views on their common Jewish background. The three monkeys in the title probably referred to the famous Japanese sculpture, although it was never said openly: one monkey holding its eyes, another holding its mouth, and another covering its ears.
At the heart of the previous novel There was the boy Jacob, with the brothers Mirra and Raphael, and the plot revolved around how everything seemed to fall apart with the divorce of the parents, both the family ties and the relationship with the Jewish congregation. Finally, the incomprehensible suicide of the father followed. “Three Monkeys” was a well-deserved success, primarily for its confident linguistic pacing and colorful character gallery.
Read more: Review by Jonas Thente on “Three monkeys”.
In “The Monkey in the Middle”, we are back in Jacob’s world. A few years have passed, it is in his nineties and Jacob’s half brother, Rafael, comes home from Israel, where he left a well-paying job and broke off his engagement. You are restless and confident but at the same time you don’t know where you want to go. Surrounding Raphael’s long-awaited return, waves of unrest erupt, especially as he is sucked into an increasingly religiously secure, one-way circle around Hasidic Rabbi Rosenbaum.
At the same time, the intifada takes place in Israel / Palestine Hopes for the Oslo Accords and the situation, which everyone is meticulously following, are bolstered by the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin in 1995. But Jacob is also committed to following the Jewish Maccabia soccer team from a place in the eighth. division to the seventh, while he anxiously follows the growing religious fanaticism of the half brother. It doesn’t get any easier when the family begins to drift away from the community of the Jewish congregation after the divorce.
The peculiarities of different family members take the form of interlocking gears: someone’s annoyance gives a boost to another’s worries, which then sets a third of thoughts in motion. Mendel-Enk goes on to say seemingly nonchalant, but underneath the simplicity is a tight composition. I don’t think it will reveal too much if I say that ultimately nothing is resolved on the last page; Good actions are not necessarily rewarded and bad actions are not punished. Most … continue. But life can be lived.
The new novel is titled “The Monkey in the Middle.” In sculpture, he is the one who puts his hands to his mouth. I guess it’s Jacob. He rarely says openly what he’s thinking, and when he tries to do it, it doesn’t come out so well. This means that there is room for two more novels in the suite, and I look forward to revisiting the part of Jewish Gothenburg that Stephan Mendel-Enk has so far portrayed with such ingenuity and subtle language.
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Read more texts by Ola Larsmo.
