Rachel Cooke’s recent article on Emil and the Detectives reminded me of how much I loved Kästner’s books as a child. I completely identified with his main characters whose fathers were usually notable for their physical, or emotional, absence. The girls in his stories (like Pünktchen, Luise and Lotte) were strong-minded and often acted rather independently from their parents. I much preferred them to Pippi Longstocking who I found curiously overbearing and whose battle with middle class values and rules I didn’t understand until much later.
My absolute favourite Kästner book was Das Doppelte Lottchen which I read so often I knew the story by heart. Just reading the first few lines (“Kennt Ihr eigentlich Seebühl? Das Gebirgsdorf Seebühl? Seebühl am Bühlsee? Nein? Nicht?...”) immediately transports me back to my childhood. Kästner was not afraid to tackle difficult subjects (like parents separating) yet did so with a remarkably light touch. Growing up at a time when divorced parents and living with a single mother were still way out of the norm, his children’s stories not only helped me to accept my personal situation but actually made it look like an advantage. People like us, he conveyed, were much closer to our parents than children with “normal” parents. Thus he made this – in my case often unwanted – closeness not only seem more attractive, but actually bearable.
Kästner’s laconic humour and dry wit ensured that I quickly moved on to his adult novels. Although I enjoyed reading them, I was surprised by their apparent lack of depth. In comparison to his children’s stories they seemed rather shallow and frivolous.
Later as a teen, when we were taught about the Third Reich at school, I became seriously disenchanted with my hitherto favourite author. Inwardly I raged against him: His books were burned, he was blacklisted and what did he do? Did he take a stand, or at least go into exile like all of the other half-decent intellectuals had done? Did he plot against Hitler? No. Instead, he wrote fluffy novels to entertain and distract the masses while thousands were killed. My hero was a hero no more.
Although I now bore a serious grudge, I nonetheless frequently returned to Kästner by re-reading his poems, or even those terrible pedestrian novels when I wanted to cheer myself up.
In my thirties I came across a biography of him which completely pulled him off the pedestal I (still) had him on. The biography revealed Kästner’s intensely close relationship with his mother which I didn’t understand and found repulsive. Who had ever heard of a mother who openly inquired about her son’s sexual exploits and could expect being answered with astonishing detail? I was appalled. After I had gotten over my self-righteous indignation, I began to appreciate the fact that Kästner had stayed when others chose to leave. His working class parents spoke no foreign languages, were elderly, increasingly frail and unwilling to leave Germany. Aware that he may not be allowed “back in” to visit them if he went into exile, he remained in Germany and kept his head above water by writing uncompromising material. This choice of remaining in Germany as well as the fact, that he was a close friend of Erich Ohser (who was denounced in 1944 and committed suicide in prison) made him very admirable again. And his fluffy yet witty and urbane novels written during the Thirties suddenly not only seemed forgivable, but actually quite a feat considering the unbelievably drab and dull propagandistic literature produced in Germany at the time.
Later on I began to wonder about that mother, who clearly played such a pivotal and dominating role in her son’s life. (Despite many affairs and relationships Kästner remained very close to his mother until her death and never married.) In turn Ida Kästner seems to have lived largely through her son, sharing in his professional successes (and presumably his failures) as well as his private ones to an uncommonly high degree. A woman who was bright, articulate and witty in her own right but had very little formal education and no scope for (or chance of?) an independent life. Like various of Kästner’s female characters she eked out a meager existence working as a hairdresser. A job Ida Kästner clearly didn’t care for, nor one that she found easy. The strong bond she shared with her son, and tightly held onto all her life, suggests that he was the only person she felt truly close to, talked freely to, and opened up to. (This must have put a huge strain on the son who – as a child – had to cope with his mother occasionally threatening to kill herself and running off. Terrified he ran after her and helped her to get over these moments.)
Watching the (German) films made from Kästners’ novels in the Fifties, I found the portrayals of his single mother characters particularly interesting. Kästner was usually involved in the production, and the films in general are very faithful to his novels. In Drei Männer im Schnee Alma Seidler gives an incredibly nuanced and heart rending performance as Doktor Hagendorn’s mother. In the few scenes she has in the film, Seidler manages to convey much of the good and bad of this unusual emotional intimacy between mother and son: the suffocating interest in, and overriding importance the mother attaches to everything the son does (to the exclusion of her own life), the genuine affection they have for each other, and the (equally unusual) ease and trust with which mother and son interact.
My absolute favourite Kästner book was Das Doppelte Lottchen which I read so often I knew the story by heart. Just reading the first few lines (“Kennt Ihr eigentlich Seebühl? Das Gebirgsdorf Seebühl? Seebühl am Bühlsee? Nein? Nicht?...”) immediately transports me back to my childhood. Kästner was not afraid to tackle difficult subjects (like parents separating) yet did so with a remarkably light touch. Growing up at a time when divorced parents and living with a single mother were still way out of the norm, his children’s stories not only helped me to accept my personal situation but actually made it look like an advantage. People like us, he conveyed, were much closer to our parents than children with “normal” parents. Thus he made this – in my case often unwanted – closeness not only seem more attractive, but actually bearable.
Kästner’s laconic humour and dry wit ensured that I quickly moved on to his adult novels. Although I enjoyed reading them, I was surprised by their apparent lack of depth. In comparison to his children’s stories they seemed rather shallow and frivolous.
Later as a teen, when we were taught about the Third Reich at school, I became seriously disenchanted with my hitherto favourite author. Inwardly I raged against him: His books were burned, he was blacklisted and what did he do? Did he take a stand, or at least go into exile like all of the other half-decent intellectuals had done? Did he plot against Hitler? No. Instead, he wrote fluffy novels to entertain and distract the masses while thousands were killed. My hero was a hero no more.
Although I now bore a serious grudge, I nonetheless frequently returned to Kästner by re-reading his poems, or even those terrible pedestrian novels when I wanted to cheer myself up.
In my thirties I came across a biography of him which completely pulled him off the pedestal I (still) had him on. The biography revealed Kästner’s intensely close relationship with his mother which I didn’t understand and found repulsive. Who had ever heard of a mother who openly inquired about her son’s sexual exploits and could expect being answered with astonishing detail? I was appalled. After I had gotten over my self-righteous indignation, I began to appreciate the fact that Kästner had stayed when others chose to leave. His working class parents spoke no foreign languages, were elderly, increasingly frail and unwilling to leave Germany. Aware that he may not be allowed “back in” to visit them if he went into exile, he remained in Germany and kept his head above water by writing uncompromising material. This choice of remaining in Germany as well as the fact, that he was a close friend of Erich Ohser (who was denounced in 1944 and committed suicide in prison) made him very admirable again. And his fluffy yet witty and urbane novels written during the Thirties suddenly not only seemed forgivable, but actually quite a feat considering the unbelievably drab and dull propagandistic literature produced in Germany at the time.
Later on I began to wonder about that mother, who clearly played such a pivotal and dominating role in her son’s life. (Despite many affairs and relationships Kästner remained very close to his mother until her death and never married.) In turn Ida Kästner seems to have lived largely through her son, sharing in his professional successes (and presumably his failures) as well as his private ones to an uncommonly high degree. A woman who was bright, articulate and witty in her own right but had very little formal education and no scope for (or chance of?) an independent life. Like various of Kästner’s female characters she eked out a meager existence working as a hairdresser. A job Ida Kästner clearly didn’t care for, nor one that she found easy. The strong bond she shared with her son, and tightly held onto all her life, suggests that he was the only person she felt truly close to, talked freely to, and opened up to. (This must have put a huge strain on the son who – as a child – had to cope with his mother occasionally threatening to kill herself and running off. Terrified he ran after her and helped her to get over these moments.)
Watching the (German) films made from Kästners’ novels in the Fifties, I found the portrayals of his single mother characters particularly interesting. Kästner was usually involved in the production, and the films in general are very faithful to his novels. In Drei Männer im Schnee Alma Seidler gives an incredibly nuanced and heart rending performance as Doktor Hagendorn’s mother. In the few scenes she has in the film, Seidler manages to convey much of the good and bad of this unusual emotional intimacy between mother and son: the suffocating interest in, and overriding importance the mother attaches to everything the son does (to the exclusion of her own life), the genuine affection they have for each other, and the (equally unusual) ease and trust with which mother and son interact.
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