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Book Reviewed by:A much-anticipated debut from a remarkable new talent in Irish fiction—a terrifyingly intimate story of a war marriage caught up in the calamity of World War II
In a desperate bid to escape the trenches of the Eastern front, Peter Faber, an ordinary German soldier, marries Katharina Spinell, a woman he has never met, in a marriage of convenience that promises 'honeymoon' leave for him and a pension for her should he die in the war. With ten days' leave secured, Peter visits his new wife in Berlin and both are surprised by the passion that develops between them.
When Peter returns to the horror of the front, it is only the dream of Katharina that sustains him as he approaches Stalingrad. Back in Berlin, Katharina, goaded on by her desperate and delusional parents, ruthlessly works her way into Nazi high society, wedding herself, her young husband, and her unborn child to the regime. But when the tide of war turns and Berlin falls, Peter and Katharina find their simple dream of family cast in tragic light and increasingly hard to hold on to.
Reminiscent of Bernard Schlink's The Reader, this is an unforgettable novel of marriage, ambition, and the brutality of war, which heralds the arrival of a breathtaking new voice in international fiction.
Excerpt
The Undertaking
1
He dragged barbed wire away from the post, clearing a space on the parched earth, and took the photograph from the pocket of his tunic. He pressed the picture against the post and held it in place with string, covering the woman's hair and neck, but not her face. He could still see that, still see her sullen eyes and sulking lips. He tied a knot, and spat at the ground. She would have to do.
He lay down to soak up the last of the summer sun, indifferent to the swirling dust and grit, wanting only to rest, to experience the momentary nothingness of waiting. But he sat up again. The ground was too hard, the sun too hot. He lit a cigarette and stared into the shimmering heat until he located a rotund figure, its arms and legs working furiously, but generating little speed. The man arrived eventually, grumbling and panting, sweat dribbling onto the white of his clerical collar.
'Why are you so bloody far away?' he said.
'I wanted privacy.'
&#...
The Undertaking is a remarkable piece of writing. Throughout, Magee's language is both unflinching and spare. Similarly to Pat Barker in her World War I novels, Magee's descriptions are stripped of metaphor and simile and her dialogue is crisp and vivid. Moreover, this is one of those rare historical novels that wears its research so lightly that the reader can forget that this is a story set in the past and simply move into the scenes and lives of its characters...continued
Full Review
(622 words)
(Reviewed by Kate Braithwaite).
Colm Toibin
The Undertaking is written with sympathy and skill. The narrative is tense and engaging, filled with complex undertones, impelled by an urgency and a deep involvement with the characters. Fergal Keane
Audrey Magee is one of the most exciting new talents to arrive on the literary scene. There is an emotional depth to her writing which elevates her to the top rank of contemporary novelists. I read her book with awe and gratitude. Frances Itani
A powerful and unusually intimate glimpse into lives we rarely read about in fiction—direct, shocking, unflinching.Berlin, August 20th, 1942
My dear Peter,
The Fuhrer has just announced that we are to take Stalingrad. To hear it from our leader's lips is thrilling. Imagine it, Peter, a German Empire stretching from the Atlantic to the Volga. It is beyond anything I could have hoped for. The man is truly a genius.
And you are to be part of it, Peter. I am very proud of you and promise to stop badgering you about home leave.
This is the opening of one of Katherina's letters to her husband Peter in Audrey Magee's The Undertaking. Peter is an infantryman and his wife assures him that the German army will have taken Stalingrad in a couple of weeks. But true to the historical facts, as Peter and his fellow soldiers press forward...
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