Launched today: click here for The Worm Hole Podcast episode 1, with time-slip author Nicola Cornick. If you’d prefer to listen using a mobile app, SoundCloud is available on the Google Play store and the Apple App Store. Finally, if you have social media and would be willing to share the link, that would be awesome, and thank you.

And now for today’s blog post:

The other side of the war.

Publisher: Salt
Pages: 169
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-784-63114-7
First Published: 15th May 2017
Date Reviewed: 27th October 2019
Rating: 4/5

Trude meets Albert when she and her friend are out together; Albert is a photographer for hire and Trude suggests he take a photo of her and her friend in exchange for a kiss. Thus begins their relationship. But Trude’s mother, Agatha, isn’t happy about this – Trude has always been a problem – and when she discovers something about the couple that will have an affect on Albert in the Nazi German regime, she makes a decision.

The Photographer is a story of the war in regards to those in Germany who had the chance to (mostly) get away.

In some ways, The Photographer is more of an easy read compared to Ziervogel’s past novellas. In contrast to those books, the narrative is relatively simple. There is less mental energy needed when assessing the characters as a reader. And the book is more generally literary than Magda and Kauthar in particular. However this only accounts for the accessibility of the novella – the issues involved are still just as hard-hitting as ever.

In Agatha’s awful, catastrophic, choice that she doesn’t seem to think through properly – or does she? The German people at the time did not know what we know since – there is a lot to take in and process. History shows us that snitching on someone you knew could have far-reaching consequences beyond that single person; Agatha never considers that the police could have also come for her as a close relative, nor that those she was under the impression her going to the police would protect could have been just as equally impacted as Albert, and so her choices hit you far more than they do her.

For all that happens – and thank god, Agatha, that Albert is lucky – once Agatha’s snitching becomes apparent, there is a relative lack of fallout. This is where reader subjectivity comes into play, strongly – you may find that Trude and Albert’s reactions are fine and appropriate given all contexts, but you may also wonder how Agatha manages not to end up in a very bad position. Both subjective thoughts are equally valid – how valid each one is to you personally depends on your interpretation of the book and what you bring to the novella. It is incredibly interesting that Ziervogel has written it in the way she has and begs a deeper study – if you have the time to read the book more slowly you may well appreciate it more. Certainly there is a lot to be said for both the desired and necessary codependency and the needs for survival between the characters as the book goes on; everyone needs each other, and Ziervogel’s melding of these two states is an interesting aspect of the book, with Trude ready to forgive her mother because she loves her, and Agatha needing her daughter.

Ziervogel’s descriptions and general placement of the characters as a sample of Nazi German people is brilliant. Again hindsight comes into play – you may never get used to the nonchalance displayed, by Trude in particular, but it’s crucial to learn. This is a family of very lucky people in general, with Ziervogel perhaps positioning them as she does in order to look at the country in a way we don’t often look at it – in relative terms the family do well for themselves, they get past the war fairly well, but around them, and in front and behind, is devastation.

So you get to see the regular everyday life – the shopping, the fashion, the going for coffees, the usual life. And you get to see the journey across the country, running from the Allies, who are rarely discussed, again allowing the focus to be on the family. And then the life that comes after. You get a superb feel for how Germany was and a sobering up from the result of displacement and taking refuge.

Albert’s time captive isn’t a main thread of the book but his memories, which he discusses with Trude, show brilliantly the extreme underside of an already-known bad aspect of history. Son Peter’s childhood and growth as a person provides a bit of general relativity as well as instances of the wars’ effects.

The Photographer deals with less-considered aspects of the Second World War in a way that brings both the horror and the living situation to the fore, leaving you with no doubt as to the affects. It is well worth your time.

I have met the author and attended a few of her events.

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