Das Treibhaus

Trilogy of Failure #2

by Wolfgang Koeppen

Das Treibhaus erzählt von einem, der im Bonn der fünfziger Jahre politische Verantwortung übernimmt, von einem Regierenden und damit in übertragener Weise von dem, was man Staatsapparat nennt: sein »Treibhaus«-Klima von Wahlkampf, Diplomatie und Opportunismus verdeutlicht, was Koeppen von Politik hält – sie ist ein Geschäft, und wer sich nicht an die Regeln hält, ist verloren.

alternate cover edition, ISBN 978-3-518-36578-6

Genres: Fiction, German Literature, Germany, Classics, Literature, Politics, 20th Century

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1953

About the author

Wolfgang Arthur Reinhold Koeppen (June 23, 1906 – March 15, 1996) was a German novelist and one of the best known German authors of the post-war period.
Koeppen was born out of wedlock in Greifswald, Pomerania to Marie Köppen, a seamstress who also worked as a prompter at the Greifswald theater. He did not have contact with his father, ophthalmologist Reinhold Halben, who never formally accepted the fatherhood. In 1920, Koeppen left Greifswald permanently, and after 20 years of moving about, settled in Munich, living there the remainder of his life.
He started out as a journalist. In 1934 his first novel appeared while he was in the Netherlands. In 1947, Koeppen received a book contract to rewrite the memoirs of the philatelist and Holocaust survivor Jakob Littner (born 1883 in Budapest, died 1950 in New York City). The resulting novel caused some controversy based on whether Koeppen was given a written manuscript to guide his work on Littner, and the novel never sold well. In 1992, a new edition was published, which led to the discovery of Littner's original text. In 2000, Littner's original manuscript was published in English and in 2002, in German.
In 1951, Koeppen had published his novel Tauben im Gras (Pigeons on the Grass), which utilized a stream of consciousness literary technique and is considered a significant work of German-language literature by Germany's foremost literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki. "Das Treibhaus" (1953) was translated into English as "The Hothouse" (2001) and was named a Notable Book by the "New York Times" and one of the Best Books of the Year by the "Los Angeles Times." Koeppen's last major novel Der Tod in Rom (Death in Rome) was published in 1954. In the ensuing years, Koeppen found it difficult to complete longer works.

Between 1962 and 1987, Koeppen received numerous literary prizes in the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1962 he was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize.

Reviews

[Steven Godin · Rating 5 out of 5]

'He had failed. Failed at every one of life's crossroads'


The Trilogy of Failure - which doesn't have to be read in order as characters and settings all differ - didn't go down well in Germany after release, and as a result Koeppen would cease to write another novel. Apart from the odd piece of non-fiction, he practically vanished into obscurity. He is now, along with the likes of Heinrich Böll and Günter Grass, seen as a major figure in post-war German literature.

Told with hardly any dialogue, the novel is a difficult read largely made up of stream-of-consciousness sequences, both complex and existential, cold and pessimistic, but the internal voice here comes mostly from the third person viewpoint rather than that of a narrator or any character. Once optimistic Keetenheuve, the tormented pacifist and guilt-ridden Socialist Peace Party member, who fled to Canada before the war, is stifled and beaten down by the 'hothouse' atmosphere of Bonn. By the consumerism plaguing his country; by the route towards militarism. Over the course of just a couple of days Koeppen delves into the psyche of Keetenheuve. His dreaming of murder on a train ride. The funeral of his young wife, Elke, whom he neglected. The long walks through the city - On the Rhine, a line of coal barges labored upstream. They looked like dead whales in the fog. The disintegrating relationships with political colleagues. The flashbacks. The turmoil. The detachment. The resigned.

'he was like a swimmer, swimming against a strong current and knowing he won't make it, he will be carried away on the current, he makes no headway, the effort is pointless, and it is easier to let himself drift, be lulled into death'

It's a despairing book. No doubt about that.

The third in the trilogy, Death in Rome - which is more chilling, dealing with a family of Nazis - is in my opinion a masterpiece. Possibly the best German novel I've ever read, along side Heinrich Böll's Billiards at Half-Past Nine. The Hothouse, the more I think about it, after letting it settle in properly, isn't that far behind. Koeppen's dazzling and complex prose really is quite something, and which was brilliantly captured by translator Michael Hofmann. The closing pages in particular were simply unforgettable. It's a stunning piece of fiction in my eyes, and I've upped it from a 4/5 to a 5/5 having read it again since.

[Szplug · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant. Four-and-a-half stars. How I subcutaneously shivered with each recognition of a Keetenheuve who was me and/or that from within me which constituted a part of Keetenheuve: solipsistic self-absorption resonating in the Key of I Minor, the ego as it's shown inside the other. No matter the strength of the story and its timeless application, the personal and collective struggles with guilt and remorse, aggression and regression, the juxtaposition of the requirements for atonement and advancement, acknowledging the past while moving forward in the present within a world in which politics, commerce, state violence all, like rust, never sleep or relax the grip of their mutual congress, its stream-of-conscious buffeting and writhing, its unconventional but lingeringly moving mnemenic wending through the uplifts and griefs of love, the scalding and asphyxiating enervation of an idealism which has burnt itself out or been smothered, nor the writing, heady but lean, lovely yet disorienting in the rhythmic melee of its movement, as if decanted from a tipped-over bottle of hundred proof despair—more than anything else it is Koeppen's ability to wring the universal from the individual, such that the individual may, in obverse contemplation, be discerned from within the whole that elevates The Hothouse to near perfection and proves anew the wisdom inherent within Lee's auspicious observation that:

Really, anything translated by Michael Hofmann can be trusted - maybe also searching for his work is a good way to discover new books from Germany and Austria?

I'm batting one thousand so far in following that very suggestion.

I am including a lengthy stretch from roughly the midpoint of the novel because I think it is just fantastic, representative of Koeppen's style throughout, and perhaps will go a way in prodding someone debating giving Koeppen a try into deciding favorably or negatively. I don't think it contains any spoilers, but caveat lector:

What was Keetenheuve after? Any roof was better than none. He ought to know that. He had known bunks in barracks and Nissen huts, put-you-ups in bomb shelters, rubble billets, emergency lodgings, he knew the slums of London and the basement holes in Rotterdam's Chinatown, and he knew that the minimum apartments that the committee was putting its weight behind were a step up. But he didn't like mollification. He couldn't see any allotment heaven. He thought he could see through the designs: he sensed poison and bacteria. How were these settlements any different from the National Socialist settlements for large families, or the SA and SS settlements, only cheaper and narrower and grimmer and shabbier? And if you looked at the blueprints, it was the Nazi idiom they were still building in, and if you looked at the names of the architects, it was the Nazi architects who were still working, and Heineweg and Bierbohn approved of the brown style and okayed the architects. The program of the National Socialist Union for Large Families was Heineweg and Bierbohn's program, it was their approach to the mollification of the population, it was their idea of social progress. So what was Keetenheuve after? Did he want the Revolution? Such a big and beautiful word, toppled in the dust! No, Keetenheuve didn't want the Revolution, he couldn't want it any more—it no longer existed. The Revolution was dead. It was withered and dead. The Revolution was an offshoot of Romanticism, a crisis of puberty. It had had its time. Its possibilities had not been investigated. And now it was a corpse, a dry leaf in the herbarium of ideas, a dead notion, an antiquated word to look up in the encyclopedia, that didn't come up in daily speech. Only a gushing youth would still enthuse about Revolution for a while longer, and after that it would be nothing but a pash or dream, an odorless bloom—the pressed blue flower of Romanticism. The time for the tender faith in liberty, equality, fraternity, it was over the morning of America the poems of Whitman strength and genius it was all onanism and the epigone lay down contentedly in the broad marital bed of law and order the night stand with the calendar that marked the fruitful and unfruitful days of his wife's cycle next to the pessary and the encyclical from Rome. Korodin had prevailed over the Revolution, and he guessed he had lost something in the process. Heineweg and Bierbohm had prevailed over the Revolution, and they felt they had betrayed something of themselves in the process. Between them, they had succeeded in emasculating religion and the Revolution. Any idea of society had gone to the Devil, and he was holding it in his claws. There might still be the occasional coup d'etat, they came in hot or cold versions, like punch, but the drink was always mixed from cheap ingredients and it left the people who tried it with sore heads. Keetenheuve was not in favor of mollification. He was in favor of looking the Gorgon in the eye. He didn't want to lower his gaze in front of horror. But he wanted an agreeable life, and he wanted to trick the devil of his due. He was in favor of happiness in despair. He was in favor of a happiness built from convenience and solitude, a happiness within reach of everyman, a lonely, convenient and despairing happiness in the technological world that had been created. There was no need to feel cold as well as miserable; or hungry as well as suicidal; one shouldn't have to wade through dirt while one's thoughts were on the void. And it was in such a spirit that Keetenheuve wanted new homes built for the working class, Corbusier machines-for-living, contemporary castles, an entire city in a single high-rise, with artificial roof gardens, artificial climate control, he saw the possibility of insulating man from excesses of heat and cold, of freeing him from dust and dirt, from housework, from domestic squabbles and noise. Keetenheuve wanted to have ten thousand under a single roof to isolate them from one another, in the way that metropolises take a man out of his neighborhood and make him alone, a lone beast of prey, a lone hunter, a lone victim, and every room in Keetenheuve's gigalith would be soundproofed against every other, and everyone should be able to set the temperature to his own liking, and he should be alone with his books, alone with his thoughts, alone with his work, alone with his idleness, alone with his love, alone with his despair, alone with his human reek.

[Gavin Armour · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eine der ersten großen Debatten der jungen Bundesrepublik Deutschland war jene um die Wiederbewaffnung und die damit einhergehende Westbindung. Im Umfeld einer der ersten Entscheidungen in diesem Prozeß – des Eintritts der Bundesrepublik in die Europäische Verteidigungsgemeinschaft (EVG) – siedelt Wolfgang Koeppen DAS TREIBHAUS (erschienen 1953) an, den zweiten seiner drei großen Nachkriegsromane, die in der sogenannten „Trilogie des Scheiterns“ zusammengefasst wurden.

Der Abgeordnete Keetenheuve, der wohl für die SPD im Parlament sitzt – genannt wird die Partei im Buch nie, aber die Geschichte des Protagonisten deutet an, daß es eigentlich nur diese Partei sein kann – kehrt aus seinem süddeutschen Wohnort heim. Eben erst hat er seine zwanzig Jahre jüngere Frau Elke beerdigt, die sich in einem langen Verlauf per Alkoholmißbrauch das Leben genommen hat. Es steht eine der entscheidenden Abstimmungen im Bundestag an und Keetenheuve, der Flucht und Vertreibung kennt, der die Jahre des Naziterrors im Ausland verbracht hat und als pazifistischer Idealist zurückkehrte nach Deutschland, will seinem Gewissen folgen und gegen jede Entwicklung stimmen, die einer Widerbewaffnung und – in seinen Augen – einem neuen Waffengang Vorschub leisten könnte. Der Krieg in Korea dräut und deutet an, daß die Supermächte bald aufeinander los gehen könnten. Während Keetenheuve einen Tag und eine Nacht durch die Bundeshauptstadt Bonn streift, sich mit verschiedenen Vertretern aus Parteien und Lobbyverbänden trifft, die alle unterschiedliche Anforderungen an ihn und sein Wahlverhalten stellen, essen geht, in Bars sitzt und einer Miss-Wahl in einer nächtlichen Kneipe beiwohnt, muß er sich darüber klar werden, wie er sich verhalten soll. Soll er seinem Gewissen folgen? Oder soll er den diversen politischen Strategien und Taktiken folgen, die an ihn herangetragen werden und sich dementsprechend der politischen, der Räson der Parteien, die als Staatsräson ausgegeben wird, beugen?

Im titelgebenden „Treibhaus Bonn“ – konkret spielt Koeppens Roman, womit er eine deutliche zeitliche Zuordnung seiner Geschichte erschwert, an einem heißen Sommertag und einer nicht sonderlich kühleren Sommernacht, was die klimatischen Bedingungen in der in einem Kessel im Rheintal gelegene Stadt feucht und drückend werden lässt – ist das politische Klima längst schon wieder auf Betriebstemperatur, haben sich die politischen Entwicklungen längst wieder in einem Handlungsalltag erneut so eingespielt, daß die Volksvertreter weniger dem Willen derer folgen, die sie gewählt haben, als vielmehr dem Spiel der Kompromisse, der Absprachen und Hinterzimmerdeals erlegen sind, welches sie untereinander spielen, gefangen in einer Blase, in einem „Treibhaus“, das die Politikerköpfe erhitzt und die Parteien miteinander mauscheln lässt. In einer Schlüsselszene bietet der „Minister ohne Amstbereich“ Frost-Forestier, als dessen reales Vorbild gern der Chef des neu entstandenen BND und ehemalige Wehrmachtsgeneral Reinhard Gehlen angesehen wird, Keetenheuve den Job als Chefdiplomat in Guatemala an, wo der seinen Lebensabend unter Palmen bei einem Pina Colada verbringen soll. Natürlich soll ein Mann wie Keetenheuve mit einem solchen Angebot aber auch aus dem parlamentarischen Betrieb entfernt werden, weil hier Männer (und Frauen) des Gewissens letztlich nur stören. Einen Betrieb stören, der sich wieder eingejazzt hat, nach gängigen Mustern verläuft und auch jene integriert hat, die eben noch als moralisch verkommen betrachtet wurden. Keine Stunde Null, nirgends. Fast surreal mutet jene Miss-Wahl in einer nächtlichen Bar an, in der sich die ganze Verachtung für das Gewesene als Feier einer Gegenwart zeigt, die von eben jenen geprägt wird, die eben noch mitmachten. Patriarchal, sexistisch und schon menschenverachtend, alkoholisiert und in Feierlaune wird weggetrunken, schöngetrunken, was nicht in das Selbstbild passt. Keetenheuve wendet sich angewidert ab. Doche s ist immer mehr, das Keetenheuve anwidert, was ihn an seiner Berufung und seinem Idealismus zweifeln lässt, der so nicht gewollt ist.

Wolfgang Koeppen gelingt es brillant, all diese Entwicklungen in der Figur Keetenheuven zu spiegeln und kulminieren zu lassen. Denn neben den politischen Überlegungen, die dem gebrochenen und zusehends resignierten Mann mehr und mehr in moralische und allgemein historische Betrachtungen zur eigenen Geschichte wie der des Landes gerinnen, wird er zugleich von Schuldgefühlen, Gewissensbissen und Zweifeln an der eigene Integrität gequält. Ist seine Mission, die er, der ehemalige Journalist, sich auferlegt hat, als er in die Politik gegangen ist, nicht schon deshalb gescheitert, indem er im Privaten, bei seiner Frau, versagt hat? Er hat sie allein gelassen, ihren inneren Dämonen, ihren Ängsten und letztlich dem Alkohol überlassen. Wie soll ein Mensch, so seine Überlegung, der es nicht einmal schafft, seine eigene kleine Welt zu retten und zusammen zu halten, ein Land, einen Kontinent, die ganze Welt retten können? In der Vermischung, der Verschiebung vom Politischen ins Private und zurück, der Deckungsdichte, die dabei angelegentlich entsteht, wird die moralische Problematik jener frühen Jahre der Bundesrepublik überdeutlich. Keetenheuve sucht schließlich, was dann keine Überraschung mehr ist, den letzten ihm möglichen Ausweg, indem er sich final den Ansprüchen aller anderen entzieht.

Eine gewisse Larmoyanz ist Koeppen, wie schon im stilistisch anspruchsvolleren Vorgänger TAUBEN IM GRAS, auch hier nicht abzusprechen. Es verwundert den Leser zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts, wie enorm schon in diesen frühen Jahren Verdrossenheit an Politik und Politikern, wie groß die Resignation, daran zu scheitern, etwas Neues, Besseres aufbauen zu können, gewesen sind. Nun war Koeppen natürlich Künstler, kein Politiker. Daß er, wie manch anderer, die Schwachstellen der jungen Republik überdeutlich wahrnahm und in Literatur verarbeitete, sie hierin überführte und gnadenlos aufdeckte und anprangerte, ist sein gutes Recht gewesen, sein Anspruch, und war vielleicht gerade bitter nötig. Dem Leser jüngeren Datums mutet das alles dennoch seltsam bekannt an, erinnert er sich noch an jene späten Jahre des vergangene Jahrtausends, als genau dieser Begriff – Politikverdrossenheit – Hochkonjunktur hatte und die sich darin ausdrückende Haltung als gefährlich für Demokratie und Rechtsstaat betrachtet wurde. Keetenheuve ist einen weiten Weg gegangen, durch einen Tag und eine Nacht und ein ganzes Leben, das sich ihm als vergeudet, als miß-gelebt darstellt. Er kann nichts ausrichten gegen Kräfte, die unverdrossen da weitermachen, wo sie eben erst aufgehört haben, die bereit sind, sich auf neue Abenteuer einzulassen, die geradezu danach gieren, wieder im Spile der „Großen“ mittun zu dürfen. Wie soll der einzelne sich dem entgegenstemmen?

Vielleicht ist DAS TREIBHAUS unter den drei Romanen der „Trilogie des Scheiterns“ von heute aus gesehen der schwächste. Vielleicht ist sein Sujet auch schlicht zu zeitgebunden, zu deutlich auf die tagespolitische Aktualität hin geschrieben, auch wenn Koeppen diese Lesart nicht zulassen wollte. Sein Roman entfalte seine eigene Wirklichkeit, so der Autor. Dennoch sind die Bezüge zu realen Personen (u.a. der Fraktionsvorsitzende Knurrewahn, hinter dem unschwer Kurt Schumacher zu erkennen ist) und Ereignissen zu deutlich, zu naheliegend, als daß der Roman schlicht für sich stehen könnte. Er greift ein, er belehrt, er klagt an. Koeppens Anschluß an die Moderne ist wohl auch hier festzustellen, sind seine Vorbilder – Joyce, Dos Passos, Faulkner – stilistisch gegenwärtig, changiert der Text zwischen Beschreibung, innerem Monolog, stream of consciousness, gibt es divergierende, manchmal kaum nachspürbare Übergänge, doch wirkt das alles weitaus weniger angemessen, als noch im Vorläufer. Weniger dringlich, weniger wirkmächtig scheint dieser Text. Klarheit aber scheint der Inhalt zu fordern. Stattdessen bietet Koeppen Zerrissenheit. Die Zerrissenheit eines Mannes, der zwischen persönlichem Versagen und politischem Verfehlen zerrieben zu werden droht. Ein zwar privates Drama, doch gelegentlich scheint sich die politisch und gesellschaftlich motivierte Wut, die der Autor hier schon empfunden haben muß, genau hinter den stilistischen Elementen zu verbergen, die das innere Drama schon eindringlich vermitteln.

Koeppens Romane werden gemeinhin als wesentlicher Beitrag zur Literaturgeschichte gerade der frühen Bundesrepublik angesehen und gelten darüber hinaus als wichtige Zeitzeugnisse der Entwicklungen in Westdeutschland. Wo TAUBEN IM GRAS und auch DER TOD IN ROM, welcher den Abschluß der Trilogie bedeutete und in seinem Ingrimm von überzeitlicher Immoralität zeugt, jedoch die Zeiten gut überstanden haben, wirkt DAS TREIBHAUS heute doch eher historisch interessant, weniger als literarisches Ereignis. Aber eben doch interessant – das allemal.

[Le_Suti · Rating 2 out of 5]

Der Stoff des Romans Das Treibhaus ist durchaus politisch: eine Nahaufnahme des Bonner Politzirkus aus der Frühphase der BRD, kurz nach dem Krieg. Es war eine Zeit, in der selbst das Unpolitischsein politisch war; trat doch eine ganze Nation, geschichtsmüde und schuldbeladen, die kollektive Flucht ins Private an. In dieser „Weigerung, sich dem tatsächlich Geschehenen zu stellen“. Ihm verlieh Koeppen in seinem Roman Ausdruck. Insofern ist Das Treibhaus ein politisches Buch – manche sagen, ein verfehltes, und werfen Koeppen vor, sich geirrt zu haben, wenn er in der Bonner Republik die nahtlose Fortsetzung des Dritten Reiches sah. Mit seiner Desillusionierung und existenziellen Krise langte Koeppen bei einem alles überschattenden Pessimismus an. In der Darstellung dieser Krise ist Das Treibhaus ein unpolitisches Buch – und als solches ein gutes.

Es können fünf Lesearten des Romans unterschieden werden:

Die erste behandelt den "Konflikt zwischen der Logik politischer Opportunität und dem Gewissen während der westdeutschen Restaurationsphase.

Die zweite das Komplement von "politischer Geschichte und Triebstruktur.

Die dritte konzentriert sich vor allem auf die ökonomischen, sozialen, politischen und ideologischen Strukturen Westdeutschlands.

Die vierte Lektüre überprüft, inwieweit sich zentrale Elemente des Textes zu einer absurdistischen Gesamtkonzeption zusammenschliessen.

Die fünfte spürt den allegorischen Figuren nach.

[Pečivo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Guten Abend! Je neděle a je tu další Pečiho nášup. Tentokrát německý román Skleník. O druhý světový se toho ví spoustu, že ano. Proto budu šetřit písmena a odkážu zájemce na jiné zdroje.

Takže - jeďte doleva, pak chvíli rovně, pak přijdou dvoje světla. Na prvních světlech ostrá doprava a je to. Teď se teda budu soustředit na ten román Skleník. Ten je totiž o době po druhý světový!

Hlavní hrdina je opoziční politik, kterej se vrací z exilu a chce odčinit zvěrstva nácků a vybudovat kvetoucí demokracii. Bohužel to ale nebylo tak úplně jednoduchý a tak nakonec skočí z mostu. Spoiler alert.

Za mne 8/10. Duch doby vykreslen vynikajícím způsobem a celkově tak dobrý, že si musím někam poznamenat ať si to někdy přečtu znova. Nechápu proč, jsem tomu dal jen vosum!

[James Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Today Wolfgang Koeppen is considered one of the preeminent novelists of postwar Germany. Much of his current reputation rests on his 3 novels about the state of postwar Germany called the Trilogy of Failure. The Hothouse is the middle novel of the series. Part of his stature is also due to the superb translations of the trilogy by Michael Hofmann.

Bonn is the setting of The Hothouse. The idea Koeppen develops is that Bonn's industries create a hothouse climate between the surrounding hills. But the protagonist Keetenheuve sees putrid rot rather than fertility and growth. It's the rot of politics. Keetenheuve is an MP in the government, and he's lost in the labyrinth of German politics as well as Bonn's nighttime streets. His recurring thoughts of the Theseus/Minotaur myth help reinforce the labyrinth theme. He's lost as in having no direction following the recent death of his wife Elke, and he's lost the political struggle for influence within his party. He's being shunted aside, even offered an unimportant ambassadorial post to get him out of the way. The reader follows Keetenheuve for 2 days as he wanders Bonn's labyrinthine streets and tries to survive the wild west politics. Michael Hofmann's "Introduction" points out that the novel rhymes in some ways with Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano. We can easily see that Bonn is equal to the Mexican wilderness where Geoffrey Firmin's volcano waits. I was also reminded of Leopold Bloom's trip into Dublin's Nighttown and of Yossarian's journey through Rome in a late chapter of Catch-22. Anywhere can be hell. Keetenheuve's walks through Bonn's nighttime streets become a fantasy realm of objects representative of German history, ideas, and literature. As you'd expect, the Nazi years are never far from the characters' thoughts and haunt the book. Underlying it all is the good Keetenheuve's dogged struggle against what he sees as evil.

It took me many pages to begin liking The Hothouse. I doubted I'd go on to the 3d novel, Death in Rome. But gradually I began to get the idea--or an idea--and now think it a more robust novel than the trilogy's 1st novel, Pigeons on the Grass, about Munich. Now having decided to read Death in Rome I'm even hoping some kind of Divine Comedy can be made of the whole. If we allow that Koeppen flipped his Inferno to the middle and imagine Pigeons on the Grass to be a kind of Purgatorio, we can hope the saintly Rome might become Paradisio. And if Pigeons on the Grass most resembles Henry Green and The Hothouse Malcolm Lowry, who will we meet in heaven? Thomas Mann? I'm eager to find out.

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. An interesting, unique, clever, sad, character based novel about Keetenheuve, a man disillusioned by the corruption of post World War Two German politics and grieving after the sudden death of his young wife, Elle.

A book about an idealistic man crushed by political and personal compromise. A novel that would be a good book to reread.

This book was first published in 1953. I prefer the author’s novel, ‘Death in Rome’ for it’s variety of well developed characters. In ‘Death in Rome’ four German family members meet by chance after WWII and we learn how these characters view the past and how they intend to live in the present and future.

[Helena Wilde · Rating 2 out of 5]

hübsch aber anstrengend :|

[Friederike Knabe · Rating 5 out of 5]

HOTHOUSE is in many ways an unusual book. It is born out of and deeply anchored in the tumultuous days of the young German republic emerging from the devastation of WWII. In that framework, it is both brilliant fiction and a devastating political critique. The novel captures the intense and oppressive atmosphere in the temporary capital, Bonn. The "hothouse" image is aptly applied to the physical environment of this city in the Rhine valley, prone to a hot, muggy and stifling climate. It also pertains to the overwrought political atmosphere, characterized by the ambiguous and contradictory political interests of the key players of the day.

Koeppen's hero, Keetenheuve, having returned from voluntary exile in 1945, was elected to the new Parliament four years later. Due to his behaviour and his political views, however, he has remained an outsider: a sensitive intellectual with strong moral and pacifist beliefs. Viewed with suspicion by his opposition party colleagues, monitored by the other side, he is ready for a major political fight. The novel's plot unfolds over a period of two days, starting with Keetenheuve's train ride to Bonn for an important parliamentary debate and ending with his wandering off into oblivion. The issue concerns the planned rearmament of Germany's western part under the control of the Allied Forces. Despite his definite views on the matter that contrast sharply with the spineless compromise attitude of the party, Keetenheuve has been chosen to present its policy in the debate.

While the story is related almost exclusively in the third person, the perspective is primarily that of Keetenheuve. The narrative flows and ebbs between assessment of friends and foes or descriptions of events and his inner musings on the past, present and future. Memory and loss of his young wife, a victim of circumstance and recent history, permeate Keetenheuve's consciousness. His feelings of personal guilt fuse with his anger and frustration with the new society that has emerged from the ruins of the war. The chances for learning from the recent past seem to evaporate in political wrangling as the old powers reaffirm themselves. His attempts to escape into the poetry are constantly undermined by the preoccupations of the day. For Keetenheuve his upcoming speech will also be a battle cry. Is he truly fit to win?

While HOTHOUSE is without doubt a work of fiction, the context that Koeppen established was real and present at the time. However, he mixed and overlapped realities with the interpretations and compulsive dreams of his hero, interspersing additional identifiable inner monologue sections into the narrative. Furthermore, the novel is rich with literary, historical and cultural allusions, connotations and metaphors. The result is a literary work of emotional intensity and descriptive power, unique for its time and place.

Reading HOTHOUSE more than 50 years after its original publication in 1953 does not necessarily do justice to what the novel represented to his contemporaries. At a literary level, it has been called "avant-garde", influenced by English-language authors such as James Joyce, rather than building on the pre-war German literary traditions. For its time it was not only innovative but also provocative in form and content and attracted more resentment and rejection than praise. It is one of three novels by Koeppen, referred to since as the "Trilogy of Failure", written within the brief period of 1952 to 1954. They stand as a rare example of literary critical examination of the Germany shortly after World War II. For the general reader HOTHOUSE will not be an easily accessible book, for anybody interested in recent German and European history it is a must read.

[Armin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nur vier oder doch fünf Sterne? Muss noch eine Nacht darüber schlafen.

[Andreas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ein Stern und es ist noch nicht mal knapp. Furchtbarer Stil und jede Seite ist eine Qual, insbesondere die Schachtelsätze...

[Martin Riexinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Deutlich schwächer als "Tauben im Gras", da sowohl Erzählweise als auch Plot deutlich weniger komplex sind. Statt eines Kaleidoskop von Wahrnehmungen einer größer Zahl von Menschen fokussiert Koeppen hier auf eine, die eines Abgeordneten der "Opposition", der unter der Restauration nicht weniger leidet als unter der nationalistischen Ausrichtung seines Parteivorsitzenden (leicht als Karikatur von Kurt Schumacher zu identifizieren). Also etwas böllesk.

Gleichwohl ein lesenswertes Zeitbild aus dem Herzen der entstehenden "Bonner Republik".

[Monty Milne · Rating 2 out of 5]

The introduction to my copy talks about this as a “novel of failure”, characterised by “cerebral despair.” A barrel of laughs it certainly is not. I didn’t enjoy it very much, finding it somewhat inaccessibly Germanic.

It starts off well enough – Hamlet, the Bible and Wagner are all referenced in the first couple of pages – but after a while it quickly gets boring. There many literary references scattered about – Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Novalis, Whitman, Holderlin etc etc. This felt designed to impress, and therefore left me unimpressed. The main character’s obvious attraction to young teenage girls must have been distinctly creepy too, even in 1950’s Germany. Stream of consciousness writing, unless done incredibly well, is most likely to induce a yawn. I yawned.

It isn’t all bad. There is a jaw dropping description of a formidable lesbian. The use of “wagalaweia” as a poetic motif recalling the noise of the train over the tracks (and the song of the Rhinemaidens in Wagner) is inventive and effective. And the last few pages leading up to the dramatic denouement are electrifying. But, for me, this is more miss than hit.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Das Treibhaus ist ein trauriger, wortgewaltiger Roman. An manchen Stellen stürzen die schier endlosen Sätze schneller und schneller und reißen den Leser in einem Strom aus Wortbildern mit. Immer wieder wird die Erzählung von englischen Zitaten, Liedtexten und Erinnerungen durchbrochen, und es entsteht eine Spiegel der bedrückenden, treibhausigen Realität der frühen Bundesrepublik. Die Resignation des Protagonisten ist greifbar, die empfundene Sinnlosigkeit der Existenz durchdringt die Nicht-Handlung.

Allerdings gibt es auch Stellen und Bilder, die nicht besonders gut gealtert sind. Dazu gehören die beiden "Lesbierinnen" ebenso wie die zahlreichen Mädchen, die unter einen unangenehmen, sexualisierten männlichen Blick fallen. Insgesamt spiegelt das Buch mir zu unreflektiert einen Blick auf Frauen, der jenseits der fünfziger Jahre keinen Raum mehr hat.
Manche der stilistischen Einschübe haben meinen Lesefluss eher gestört, und insgesamt schien Koeppen immer wieder die Kontrolle über diesen rastlosen, punktlosen, absatzlosen Text zu verlieren.

Interessant war die Lektüre dennoch.

[Fimodino · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eine sehr scharfsinnige, aber auch zynische Geschichte über das Innenleben der modernen Politik. Geniale Analysen gepaart mit gleichwohl anspruchsvoll Abschweifungen, die sich beim ersten lesen und ohne Germanistik Studium nicht unbedingt erschließen.

[A. Hotzler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes he writes with the best of stylists, other times he falls flat on his face. When he's good, he's amazing; when he misses the mark, however, you want to shout at him: put a fucking paragraph break in and call it good; quit while you're ahead. I would recommend whilst reading it to read it out loud; let the lips, tongue, and teeth feel the physicality of the words when you say them. There is an amazing lyricism that very few novelists have ever captured. Koeppen is a literary diamond in the rough.

This novel is, as Nadine Gordimer says, "scathingly beautiful," and although it's less difficult in some ways to read it than its predecessor ("Pigeons on the Grass"), it still poses serious aesthetic and contextual difficulties. Koeppen is very literate, and references everything from Theseus and the Minotaur to Macbeth, Don Quixote, German politics, 19th century literature, Nietzsche, and, of course, there is a very serious existentializing section (no spoilers).

I can't give it four and a half stars (damn, Goodreads) but it certainly lives up to it, even when it falls flat at times.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Considered a classic of German post-WWII literature, I think this is a book only for those intensely interested in Zeitgeist of the early days of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). It is a Camus-like, existentialist portrayal of a parliamentarian who questions his life and purpose parallels the same issues for the young nation he serves. One highlight were descriptions of a character modeled on Kurt Schumacher, the leader of the Social Democrats, a rabid anti-Communist and nationalist whose priority was the reunification of Germany. But much of the novel meanders and reading it requires a more than casual knowledge of early 1950s German political and social history.

[Cooper Renner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another masterwork from Koeppen. Where Pigeons on the Grass featured a stream-of-consciousness approach with a large cast of characters in post-war Germany, Hothouse focuses almost entirely on the activities and thoughts of Keetenheuve, a member of the German parliament, a recent widower, a man who thinks too much for his own good. The stream-of-consciousness style is similar, but the motion and specific concerns of the book are much different. The language is superb, the depiction of Germany is superb, and the echoes for contemporary U.S., though obviously not intended, are not to be denied.

[Kobe Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is pretty good if you want to read about a guy whining to himself

[Rainer6868 · Rating 2 out of 5]

extrem langatmig und langweilig

[Suzanne Manners · Rating 4 out of 5]

When reading the book's introduction, I fell in love with this writer before even starting a word of the story to follow. It was his responses to several interview questions that had me. When asked what the crucial event of his life was, his reply was “learning to read.” Another time he was asked how he'd like to die ... a morbid question I thought. Yet when reading his answer was “in bed with a book,” I thought exactly! Koeppen also was noted as saying “It is perhaps my only boast, not to have served in Hitler's armies for a single hour.”

The Hothouse is set in the capital of postwar Germany, the city of Bonn and takes place over a period of two days. Readers will follow thoughts and actions of Keentenheuve, a member of parliament. He has recently returned to his homeland, having been away in England for several years to avoid Nazism. Keentenheuve is a brooding character and wants to work at restoring his beloved county, but isn't sure he can trust his colleagues who each represent different factions. Haunted by their country's involvement in WWII, and the atrocities served by German government, everyone seems to have mistrust, guilt, and a jaded sense of reality.

In the book’s opening chapter Keentenheuve is introduced as a grieving widower. His much younger wife, Elke, has tragically succumbed to an alcohol / drug overdose. This sets a sad tone that stays with the story, as emotions can't improve greatly in just two days. Keentenheuve feels responsible; for neglecting his wife. He has spent too many nights at his government apartment, leaving Elke alone to find company with the wrong crowd.

The writing style of Koeppen is very descriptive, lyrical, and somewhat complex, with sometimes paragraph-long sentences. I also discovered new (sometimes forgotten) words that increased my range of vocabulary. For instance, another way of saying something is odd … can be referred to as something “droll.” Lexicons would love this book, and because of its poetic style, it is very beautiful when read aloud.

Here’s an example of Koeppen’s style and also marks his character's feeling of despair quite well … “He had attended committee meetings, he had spoken in parliament, he had revised legislation, he didn’t understand it, he could have stayed at Elke’s side, stayed on the side of youth, and perhaps, if he hadn’t done everything wrong, it might have been on the side of life as well. One human being was enough to give meaning to life. Work wasn’t enough. Politics weren’t enough. Those things didn’t protect him from the colossal futility of existence. It was a mild futility. It didn’t hurt. It didn’t stretch out long ghost arms to catch at the MP. It didn’t throttle him. It was just there. And it remained. Futility had shown itself to him, it had introduced itself to him, and now his eyes were open, now he could see it everywhere, and it would never disappear, it would never become invisible to him.”

I shared this book with Gerhardt and Johanna from our county's German Club to get their take on the story. They both agreed that the rambling, and yes sometimes repetitive wording, can be a bit much at times. Maybe something was lost in translation and reading it in its original language would have been more enjoyable for them. Although, others in our book group savored the lyrical phrasing, which often took on stream of consciousness, roll-and-flow-like thoughts. Koeppen lets readers ‘become’ his character with this technique. As always book club fare highlights food mentioned in the story. With this book there were sugared almonds, potato cakes, fizzy lemonade, and Cheryl's delicious version of Beef Steak Esterhazy. I discovered when researching the name Esterhazy, (belonging to a German political family), that it is often descriptive of foods including scorched onions. Karin, another member of the German club, introduced us to stollen, a German fruit bread often served at Christmas … perfect since this story takes place during the holiday season! Reading this book was a cultural experience for me that increased my knowledge in so many areas. If you decide to read this book I recommend digesting it slowly so as not to “choke” on unfamiliar words or miss out on Koeppen's descriptive detail.

[Pascale · Rating 3 out of 5]

In my humble opinion, the least successful of Koeppen's so-called post-war trilogy. I found this book too ponderous and arty. Unlike in the other 2 novels, style here gets in the way rather instead of contributing to capture the mood of a specific period in time and express national trauma. Also this book concentrates on one character, the disillusioned politician Keetenheuve, and character doesn't seem to be what Koeppen is best at. Finally, since I am not German and we are in 2021, I struggled with all sorts of references which the translator would have been well-advised to illuminate (there's a handful of footnotes, none of them remotely helpful, although this translation is only 20 years old and therefore not aimed at Koeppen's contemporaries). The novel covers the last 48h in the life of Keetenheuve, a German journalist who left his country when the Nazis came into power and spent the war in Canada. Upon his return in Germany, he married Elke, a 16-year old girl whose father, a Gauleiter, committed suicide when Hitler was defeated. When the novel starts, Elke has just died, either from suicide or chronic alcohol abuse. Keetheuven, who got elected to parliament soon after his return from exile, blames himself for sacrificing his young wife to his seemingly futile attempt to effect real change in German political life. During the course of the novel, he is alerted by a senior American journalist to the fact that British and French generals have taken a stand in favor of the permanent division of Germany. Since the party in power is unaware of this, it gives Keetenheuve's opposition party a golden opportunity to embarrass them publicly, since the issues of reunification and of the rearmament of Germany are dynamite. A true pacifist, Keetenheuve does not see the need for a German army, a stand which is unpopular even within the ranks of his own party. Someone tries to bribe Keetenheuve into not using the information he has by offering him the post of Ambassador to Guatemala. Keetenheuve is tempted to accept, not because it's such a prestigious post, but because spending the rest of his life in a tropical sinecure would be an elegant way out. However, he does his duty by his party leader, the WWI veteran Knurrewahn, and delivers the expected speech in front of parliament. As anticipated by our jaded hero, everybody says their piece on cue, and no tangible result is achieved. Keetenheuve spends the rest of the evening pub crawling, and finally jumps off a bridge. Arguably then, this book has more "plot" than "Pigeons" and "Death in Rome", but maybe because of its focus on the dysfunctional aspects of political life in Bonn, to me it lacked the punch of the other 2 novels.

[Arthur Schadkopf]

While other classic contributions to so called "German Post-War Literature" by Böll or Schmidt didn't make much of an impression on me, with Koeppen I seem to finally have found my guide through the era of Marshall-Plan fueled restoration. In it's deeply disillusioned tone, the novel surpassed my expectation regarding the critical insight of writers during this early phase of the new German state. Koeppen is not only pointing out the continuities between Nazism and the new state as sharply as any author of the 68-generation could wish for, he is also free of any sentiment toward the new found system. A point I missed in Böll, who seems fairly committed to a social democratic vision. At every point it is clear, that the new state's job is the competent administration of capital. People like Keetenheuve, the protagonist, can only find small spaces for progressive reforms, a tiresome system that wears out idealists and champions opportunists.
It was clearly a risky choice for Koeppen to make a politician the protagonist of the novel, immediately opening up a demand for high degrees of commitment to historical facts, but it works very well here. Koeppen switches between associative, oneiric narration, to a more realist mode and back again multiple times throughout the short novel, thereby avoiding the journalistic trajectory of the plot. He encircles the subject of the young Federal Republic through this double approach of literary idioms thereby achieving a kind of dissolution of prosaic reportage into a tapestry of historical signifiers, centered in the affective state of mind of the protagonist. This is the rare novel that really lets you look with new eyes on an era you knew only from history lessons up until now.
My only issue with the novel was it's ending. Major Spoiler ahead: I'm yet to find a novel ending with the suicide of the protagonist, where this turn of events wouldn't feel like a cheap device to lend the material some additional weight, as if the author didn't trust the impact of his work up until this point. I was thinking about Nabokov's "Lushin", Kracht's "Faserland", Goetz' "Johann Holtrop" Houellebecq's "Extension du domaine de la lutte". All novels which I enjoyed for there insight into character and society, but that left me down due to their (implicitly or explicitly) suicidal climax. I guess, this resolution robs me of the feeling of ambiguity, which I clearly favor a as poetic mode.

[Pip · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book comprises the thoughts of Keetenheuve, an opposition parliamentarian in post-war Bonn, over the course of two days. Its stream of consciousness approach makes it difficult to tease out what is action and what is in the Keetenheuve's mind. I am not sure that the reader can discover his first name, not why he has what seems to me a Dutch name. The hothouse of the title is a description of the climate both literal and political of Bonn. "A hothouse climate flourished in the basin between the hills, the air stagnant over the river and its banks." The translator, Michael Hofmann, wrote in a foreward to his 2000 translation that Koeppen wrote a criticism of Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano in which he said "It is an intellectual book, you might almost say a book written for writers, full of civilization, quotations, allusions, doubts and asperity, the song of a cerebral dispair, a protocol of failure, a plumbing of the depths of the soul, a laying bare of the emotions of the heart ....The novel is told at a breathless pace. But its panting breath has the moving, burning sniff of great poetry. It is an intoxicating book. The words flow over the reader like a cataract and make him delirious. But they are also elevating." Hofmann remarks that this description also fits The Hothouse and I can only concur.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Теплица" жутко похожа на "Голубей в траве", действие разворачивается там же, в сразупослевоенной Германии, герои имеют те же самые черты. В общем, автор здесь дорассказал то, что не получилось в "Голубях".
Главный герой "Теплицы" - депутат оппозиционной партии, у которого недавно умерла жена, совсем молодая, которую он очень любил, но не мог уделять ей достаточно времени, поэтому сейчас он чувствует свою вину. Кроме того, его утомляет ощущение бесполезности всего происходящего вокруг. Теплицей он называет удушающую изолированную атмосферу. То же самое чувство, что и у Платт - под стеклянным колпаком. Ещё поток сознания Кёппена похож на произведения Вульф по атмосфере. Интересно, бывает ли когда-нибудь более позитивный поток сознания?

[Rosemary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written and set in West Germany in the years after World War II, this novel follows the thoughts and actions of a member of parliament as he deals with all the small and large failures of his life - his stumbling career, his years abroad in flight from the Nazi regime, his relationship with a wife he couldn't save.

Although it isn't entirely a stream of consciousness novel, it certainly has those moments, and I felt carried along by a river which was pleasant enough until it wound up somewhere I didn't particularly want to go in the last section. I think that's what happened in Keetenheuve's life.

[Gregor Gross · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meine Notizen:

* ➜ https://bookrastinating.com/user/greg...
* ➜ https://bookrastinating.com/user/greg...
* ➜ https://bookrastinating.com/user/greg...

Lesenswerte Betrachtung der bundesdeutschen, jungen Demokratie. An einigen Stellen fand ich es etwas zäh, meistens wenn Protagonist Kleetenheuve besoffen durch die Bonner Nacht taumelt und Visionen erleidet.

Mitten drin aber wirklich prophetische Betrachtungen der Probleme unserer Demokratie und unseres wieder erstarkenden Nationalismus. Daher auch, trotz des Alters von mehr als 70 Jahren, immer noch aktuell.

[Xalita diGirancourt · Rating 1 out of 5]

Frauen und Mädchen werden anhand ihrer Brüste charakterisiert. Mag sein, dass ein jeder alter weißer Mann/Politiker so denkt, mag sein. Ich brauche die Wichsfantasien dieses Autoren aber nicht als angeblich essenziell politische Literatur einer Nachkriegszeit -- Männer scheitern ja anscheinend die Menschheitsgeschichte lang. Lässt sich auch in einem Satz für die Nachwelt festhalten.

Wirklich schade, Tauben im Gras hat mir gefallen.

[Tobias Voigt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Weltschmerz und tiefe Sinnlosigkeit im existenzialistischen Stil. Aktuelle Bezüge lassen sich herstellen, zum Beispiel die Verzweiflung der Unmöglichkeit des echten Pazifismus in seiner praktischen Umsetzung. Ein wenig zu billige Demokratiekritik. Und ganz viel Trauer eines Mannes, der es vielleicht gar nicht weiß. Ein durch und durch tragischer Roman, der nicht durch hohe Lesbarkeit besticht. Alte Bundesrepublik ist dabei auch das hier versinnbildlichte Frauenbild.

[Ella Bowman · Rating 2 out of 5]

If pigeons on the grass by koeppen made me momentarily consider whether I liked stream of consciousness literature this book firmly restored my opinion that I mostly despise it. Maybe it was the fact I read most of this book recovering from a hellish illness bug but I genuinely thought I was going insane at multiple points trying to understand what the hell was happening