In 1999, Geert Mak was employed by a Dutch newspaper to crisscross Europe for a year, writing a daily piece, published each day on the right hand bottom corner of the paper’s front page. His job was to try to find out what shape the continent was in at the end of the twentieth century and search for traces left by the events of the one hundred years just past. This book is not a straightforward collection of the pieces he wrote, but rather a synthesis of what he saw, thought and learned during his twelve-month assignment, based loosely, (I think), on those original pieces.
Before he sets off, Mak prepares himself by talking to a 99-year-old Dutchman he knows who, when asked what he thinks about the almost finished century, replies:
“Ah, a century is only a mathematical construct, a human fantasy.”
Mak then begins the book proper by heading for Paris, armed with an 1896 Baedeker. He reflects on Walter Benjamin’s decision to name Paris The Capital of the Nineteenth Century, (although London was more powerful, Berlin more a centre of industry, Paris dazzled with its use of iron and glass in buildings, its artists and its beauty, Mak says). He examines the relationship Parisians have with their rural roots –
“No other metropolis is so much a city and, at the same time, so infused with the countryside as Paris. In the three-minute walk from my hotel to the nearest boulevard I pass six greengrocers, five bakeries, five butchers, three fishmongers. Shop after shop, the crates are displayed on the pavement: apples, oranges, lettuce, cabbage, leeks, radiant in the winter sun. The butcher shops are hung with sausages and hams, the fish lie in trays along the pavement, from the bakeries wafts the scent of hundreds of varieties of crisp and gleaming bread”
– and gives a fascinating account of rural life before 1900 and the changes it underwent in the early years of the new century, drawing on numerous sources. His writing is so vivid, his eye for interesting detail so good, that the reader never feels overwhelmed.
Mak continues in a similar manner for 829 unputdownable pages, travelling to London, Berlin, Vienna, Helsinki, Munich, Ypres, Verdun, Versailles, Warsaw, Moscow, Leningrad, Auschwitz, Istanbul, Vichy, Bucharest, Budapest, Prague and thirty or forty other places, bringing each one and its history vividly to life. I could quote from each chapter at length, but this post would be absurdly long. Instead, I suggest people seek out the book itself. Mak’s eye for detail is terrific, his skill at holding the reader’s interest is phenomenal, his ability to come up with surprising, little-known but illuminating facts is phenomenal.
I cannot recommend In Europe – Travels through the Twentieth Century highly enough to those who find academic history less than gripping. The book is essentially a history of Europe in the twentieth century, but there is virtually never a dull moment - while packed with facts, it is anecdotal in style, full of the voices of living - or once living - people. It is hugely entertaining, bringing the past to life in a way I have rarely encountered.
The truth is Mak’s is one of the few books that I will probably read again - can there be greater success for an author than to have a reader who feels that way?
No comments:
Post a Comment