UrbanWire

As unassuming as its simple title Mrs. Sartoris suggests, this book, despite being a debut novel by German-born Elke Schmitter, is hardly modest in its literate architecture of 1 woman’s inner ruminations that are almost always mired in shades of grey.

Its pages are littered with fine details and exquisite subtleties – Mrs Sartoris notes even the slightest undertones: “[Irmi] was almost as much in love in me as [my husband] was, but there was something about this that humbled me: she wasn’t just proud of me, she really loved me.”

Elegantly paced, the book takes readers nearly unconsciously into Mrs Sartoris’ life lived in a void, her thoughts almost as rich as her heart is empty.

Mrs. Sartoris opens with its protagonist, Margaret, seemingly blissful in a stable marriage with a husband, Ernst, who panders to her whims and fancies. This pensive tale unfolds in a small German town called L and is vaguely set within a post-war period. At 40, Margaret’s lost little of her physical beauty. She has a beautiful daughter, a charming mother-in-law, a serene outer existence, but upon further revelations, the cracks are just starting to show.

“The last twenty years seemed a kind of
bleached-out approximation,
something that happened without me.”

If anything, her present life is nothing but a wan spin-off of a grander youth. Enraptured with love at 18, Margaret’s fall from grace (or love for that matter) compels her into a state of disappointment. Her marriage is but a false haven – she cares little of the comforts her husband can give her – while her reality remains stuck in a moment of yesterday, living constantly with the emotional scars of a failed romance.

A chance encounter pushes Margaret into a volatile, encompassing affair with a married man, Michael, where her dreams are once again ignited. She plots to leave her family to start a new life with her lover but dreams are not so easily attained. What follows is a tale of the inevitability of hurt unto others in order to fulfill self and its crashing, devastating consequences.

A delicate novel, Mrs. Sartoris is quietly charming in its themes of irony and struggle between reality and illusion. It reads like a slow, melancholy walk by the ocean, where the lull is before a storm that is drawing in.

Mrs. Sartoris never ventures into intellectual discussions of the metaphysical but nearly always stays firmly rooted in the choices, the feelings, and the truth of Margaret’s existence. She offers neither excuses nor explanations but simply states her condition. If you’re looking for solace or some form of closure, Mrs. Sartoris offers none.

Yet, its beauty remains poignantly in the perceptive, feminine insight it offers to our own contradictions and haplessness. Read through its subtleties and you will find a soul we can all relate to and feel for.

Ultimately, the telling indication of the merit this translated novel is how its quiet beginning is intrinsically linked to its forceful end. For compulsive last-page-flippers, however, contain yourself, for to jump the gun would be to shortchange yourself of a tale at once personal but heart-renderingly universal.