Meine weisse Stadt und ich: Das Bernbuch

by Vincent O. Carter

1944/45 hatte er als umjubelter GI Europa befreit, als er Jahre später wiederkommt, um sich als Schriftsteller niederzulassen, will man ihm nicht mal ein Zimmer vermieten. 1953 lässt er sich in Bern nieder, wo er als Schriftsteller und Englischlehrer arbeitet. Verlässt er das Haus, ist er immer auf die ihm verhasste Frage Warum bist du nach Bern gekommen?
Und so macht sich Carter in seinem Buch auf, diese Frage, die an seinen «Grundfesten rüttelt», zu bewältigen. In immer neuen Anläufen erzählt er, warum er nicht in Paris, Amsterdam oder München geblieben ist, er erzählt Kindheitserinnerungen aus Kansas City und vor allem von Begegnungen in Bern, wo ihn alle anstarren – Männer, Frauen, Kinder, Hunde, Katzen … –, von Geldsorgen, Liebesgeschichten, Reisen, Wohnungssuche. Mit so unzerstörbarem Humor wie hartnäckigem Engagement und voller Ambivalenz geht er dem Rassismus auf den Grund, der Verschiedenheit der Menschen, dem Fremdsein des Individuums in der Gesellschaft. Und ganz nebenbei zeichnet er ein scharf beobachtetes Porträt seiner Zeit, seiner Gesellschaft und seiner Stadt.

Genres: Nonfiction, Race, Biography

470 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Vincent O. Carter was born in Kansas City in 1924. At seventeen he was drafted into the U.S. Army. He landed on the beaches of Normandy in 1944 and took part in the drive toward Paris. Back in the United States, he took advantage of the G.I. Bill, earning a college degree from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania and spending a graduate year at Wayne University in Detroit. Eventually he returned to Europe, spending time in Paris, Munich, and Amsterdam before settling in Bern, where he spent the rest of his life in a sort of self-imposed exile. He died there in 1983.

Reviews

[Valerie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ein besonderes Zeugnis über ein Stück Schweizer Geschichte

"Gleich wird er mir die verhasste Frage stellen, ich weiss es! Die Frage, die mich seit dreieinhalb Jahren zweimal im Monat ein-, zwei-, manchmal auch viermal pro Woche umbringt. Die Frage, die an meinen Grundfesten rüttelt.
"Aber warum..."
"Ich muss jetzt los", sage ich in dem Versuch abzulenken. Ich zappele auf meinem Stuhl herum und blicke verzweifelt hierhin und dorthin.
"Aber warum..."
"Kellner!"
"Aber warum..."
"Warum was?"
"Warum bist du ausgerechnet nach Bern gekommen?"


Vincent Carter kam als GI 1944-45 erstmals nach Europa. Als er Jahre später zurückkommt, fühlt er sich alles andere als willkommen. In Amsterdam findet er wenig Anschluss, München scheint für Amerikaner gar nicht attraktiv zu sein. Und so lässt er sich mehr zufällig in Bern nieder. Als er 1953 dort ankommt feiert Bern sechshundert Jahre Eidgenossenschaft, ein für Carter beeindruckendes Ereignis. Danach versucht er sich dort als Schriftsteller und kommt mehr schlecht als recht über die Runden. "The Bern Book" entstand während seinen Jahren in Bern und wurde nun erstmals auf Deutsch übersetzt.

Carter beschreibt in diesem Buch seine Beobachtungen in der Schweiz, insbesondere wie er als Schwarzer häufig sehr speziell behandelt wurde. Rassismus gehörte genauso zum Alltag wie die ihm so verhasste Frage, "Wieso bist du nach Bern gekommen?". Und so freundet sich Carter über die Jahre sehr langsam mit der Stadt an und die Schweizer sich mit ihm. Er teilt einige sehr interessante Beobachtungen über die Schweizer und deren Naturell, die Landschaft und allem voran den Rassismus, der ihm täglich begegnet. Und doch schafft er es auf eine gewisse Art, mit der Stadt seinen Frieden zu schliessen. Ich fand dieses Zeitzeugnis sehr interessant zu lesen - insbesondere als Ausländerin in der Schweiz finde ich Carters Beobachtungen treffend und informativ, vieles scheint sich in den letzten siebzig Jahren nicht relevant verändert zu haben. Seine Sprache ist teils sehr poetisch, seine Überlegungen philosophisch angehaucht. Das macht das Buch spannend, jedoch auch teils etwas langatmig zu lesen. Ein sehr besonderes Zeugnis über ein Stück Schweizer Geschichte.

[Frank Strada · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I learned of Carter's memoir, The Bern Book, I had just finished reading his only published novel, Such Sweet Thunder. I was captivated by the novel, which was an excellent take on life in a segregated midwestern city (Kansas City, MO) through the eyes of a Black boy and young man in the 1930s. Since I grew up in KC in the 50s and 60s, I had more than a passing interest in this novel. However, the novel I feel stands on its own regardless of whether or not you're familiar with city he describes. It's brilliantly written and I've reviewed it as such.

So, The Bern Book, which was written before his novel, caught my eye. It's about his life in Switzerland in the 1950s (he lived out his life there up to his death in 1975). But it's really much more than that. He talks about the nature of racism in Europe, compared to the US and goes on about the arts, philosophy, literature, and significantly, how he tried to make a living without a "real job." His thoughts on the nature of the Swiss people are fascinating, as well as funny.

Some examples: on music, "I am always a little skeptical of those musical 'purists' who can find beauty in only one genre of musical experience, in jazz, say, or in classical music, when the best in one genre - especially in our times - exemplifies the best in the other."

On reality: ". . . it makes no sense to look back . . . sensing that all was well just as it was, as it is and as it will be, because all IS; wishing, nevertheless, to take one last leave of the cherished pain, which contained the highest pleasure I was able to conceive; the illusion of myself as an aspect of all; all as an aspect of myself." (In his later years, Carter lived as a Buddhist with his partner, a Swiss woman).

On suffering: "The whole world suffers all the time. . . the mind of man cannot accommodate that suffering. . . the world has had its Buddhas and Jesuses and they have always advised us to cast down our buckets where we are!: to pluck the arrow from the wounded mans's breast, and ask not from whence it came and go on your way! Suffer for the Indians if you must; if, upon perceiving the needs of your next door neighbor, you can find the time."

The only real fault I found in this book is in the last few pages, beginning with the chapter titled "The Scheme." I couldn't really figure out what he was getting at, hence 4 stars instead of 5. If any of you readers have an opinion on that, I would love to hear it.

[mo (sie) · Rating 4 out of 5]

it took me almost two years to finish this book. it isn't an easy read for sure, very philosophical, long sentences, not very plot or character driven.

as context: at the time carter wrote this novel, my grandmother was pregnant with my father, who would be born very close by in 1958. bern is my city. i moved there when i was 18 from the little town where i grew up, fifteen minutes away. i went to high school in kirchenfeld gymnasium, the very neighbourhood where carter spends most of this book, a very imposing neo-classical building constructed in the fourties, where at about the time carter came to bern mani matter, one of the most famous swiss musicians and poets, made his matura (graduation). i took the tram at the train station which took me over the bridge with the spider, everyday for four years. now my boyfriend lives in the fischermätteli, where carter moves to in the end, in a side street of pestalozzistrasse which he mentions. i know almost all of the places he discribes, but then i also don't know them because bern, although still provincial in a lot of ways, has of course changed a lot since carter's times.

i enjoyed this book a lot, mainly because of all the references relevant to my daily life. it felt a little like walking through the bern of my grand parents, whom i never really met. also, he describes the social life of that little town that i love so much, and at times it feels so similar to today, the aare, the kirchenfeldbrücke, taking the tram to see your friends for a dinner. it is, however, also the social life of the if not well off, at least well-educated, to which my working class grandparents of course had no access, shown for example by the neighbourhoods where his friends live (kirchenfeld and the old town, never lorraine or länggasse, the proletarian neighbourhoods) and the restaurants he frequents (like the mövenpick and the casino).

there are also things he describes that have obviously changed so much, like a poor person living in kirchenfeld (phaha that is a good joke actually, a one-room-flat there costs probably about 1200 francs (about 1330 dollars) today), and the ugly new flats he describes are probably ones like the one i'm writing this from, which, compared to the abominations of 1960s to 1980s architecture are actually really lovely.

of course, it was also incredibly interesting to read what carter thought about the swiss and the bernese in particular. i think he gives us too much grace at times. also, i must admit i didn't discuss this with anyone or think about it day and night, but it was hard for me to follow many of his thought processes. he often describes situations that feel so violent to me, then explaining it all away and kind of repremanding himself for caring. maybe i also just don't understand his humour, i think he is very often being quite sarcastic and although my mind has been very much americanized by more than a decade of english language media, i guess my severe swiss upbringing showing.
of course, his situation was also very different from the lives of black people in bern now. he was basically the only visible black man in bern at the time, as far as i understand. people in bern seriously had no clue about anything and one might give them the benefit of the doubt that some of their strange behaviour might have been playful curiosity. i can see how carter could take these strange encounters with humor and he apparently often even felt there was nothing much wrong with those interactions in the first place. but at times i did ask myself if this wasn't also simply a surviving strategy, not taking things too personally, rationalizing experiences.

i've read a few works by baldwin, who lived in a swiss mountain village for a time, a few years later than carter though, i believe, and it was much more easy for me to follow his trains of thought, to understand his feelings. but maybe i expect an interpretation of racism or an interpretation of certain behaviour as racist that just didn't fit carter's life, and i don't want to devalidate his feelings. at the same time, i think baldwin, a few years later and with the more intersectional experience of also being gay, might have had words to express his feelings and allowed himself anger that carter tried to discuss away. and don't get me wrong, carter also describes instances that he felt were quite violent or wrong, maybe simply framing them more sarcastically rather than with the rage he sure as hell would have had the right to express.

furthermore, i think much of this anger or at least helplessness does shine through between the lines as he tries again and again to find a synthesis between his identity as a black man, what the swiss expect of black men and the role he plays or wants to play in swiss society. and that was, at times, hard to follow for me i think.

i enjoyed the fragmentary character of the narration, the way the narrative took you seamlessly through these short chapters with no respect for time or space continuum. what i didn't enjoy (and that is much less carter's fault than the editors') were the many typos and inconsistencies in ortography and translation. on one page, one sentences uses a phrase with an umlaut and the second time that word is used, the umlaut is symply not there, instead there are two apostrophes or something. or the one instance when the weissenbühl and the fischermätteli are mentioned in the same sentence, the first having its correct and necessary umlaut, the second missing its own, just as essential one for no apparent reason.

in other cases, hyphens are missing in german words or the cases of the translations are wrong, or short german and swiss german sentences just feel, if not exactly wrong, unauthentic and staged. that just bugged me. i think language is one of the only things about swiss-german identity that are actually interesting and not problematic or overly nationalist (another thing is jass, a swiss card game - hit me up if you want to learn haha). but then i'm also a language nerd, so of course that would bug me.
the same lack of consideration can, however, also be seen on the cover, which, for my edition, shows a random ass touristic alpine village in front of some mountains, that i'm pretty sure aren't even in the broader region of bern. and i understand that switzerland is miniscule in the grand scheme of things, but the alps are about 3o kilometers away from bern and that village looks as though the picture was not even taken in the 50s, but much later. bern is many things, provincial, small, conservative, but it is also the de facto capital of switzerland and in a pretty flat spot of switzerland by swiss standards, and even in the 50s it saw snow only a couple of weeks a year.

what i enjoyed even less though were some passages of extreme misogyny. i'm not talking about instances were carter talks about women in this genial, savoir-vivre, paris-lifestyle kind of way, not even when he talks about what he deems typical biographies of girls who (like me 60 years later) come to the city from the surrounding country side. he also does talk about how swiss women didn't have suffrage yet (and wouldn't for another 15 years, another 30 in some parts of the country) and how attitudes towards women were very conservative. no, what i couldn't stand was when he talked about women exactly like objects, casually mentioning visiting brothels (imagine a woman at that time simply writing about premarital sex, that would have been a scandal in switzerland) and once even getting a girl pregnant, whom he then talks into having an abortion (illegaly of course). i'm not talking about the fact that he did those things in particular (even though some of it is questionable in its own right), but especially about the way he talks about this in that same disconnected, cynical tone, as though it was just the way of life that you treat women like things that you can shove around. there are also some passages on that are very homophobic. i don't remeber in detail, i think he says basically that homosexuality is an illness that comes from your mother loving you too much, or too little, or something, and although he is not like, violently homophobic, those observations are just not as deep as carter probably felt they were and just feel incredibly dated. i'm sure he was in no way worse than many other authors in switzerland at that time - i've just never read anything autobiographical or non-fictional by frisch or dürrenmatt (both are mentioned in this novel btw, which was very intersting for me, too, reading about those "big men" of swiss literature as they were perceived when they were still actively publishing books, their plays staged for the first time, by an international author).

all in all, enjoyed this a lot because of the writing style (although that was also tedious at times) and the bernese setting. hearing about everything you know (well i don't really, it's been almost seventy years) from the perspective of an outsider is really interesting, especially for an unimportant little town like bern who doesn't get the literary attention say, paris or even geneva does. and i very much appreciate his perspective, even though i find it harder to connect to it than other black authors of around that time. i do understand, however, that i might be very taken in by modern framings of (structural) racism and the ways in which this affects black people in switzerland today, which probably makes me quite close minded in a way to other interpretations. i do hope i took something with me anyways and maybe learned something about my culture, which is still a very racist one in many old and new ways, and how to challenge it. but i can't say i would necessarely recommend this book to anyone who has no connection to switzerland.

i think the first german translation of bern book was published a few years ago and there has been a little interest in the story around here, since. there were several interpretations for the stage over the last year or so (i sadly never managed to catch one although i really wanted to), but i have seldomly seen the book being discussed outside of one or two columns in a newspaper.

if you have read so far, please consider supporting https://justice4nzoy.org/ . nzoy was a young black man who was shot by swiss police a few years back. the officers are all getting away with it the way they did for the last three police shootings of black men in switzerland. racist police violence is not only a problem in the US.

also: if you're ever in bern: hit me up! i've often thought i'd love to show a stranger around "my" town!

[A L]

A great read, a strange read, a montage of short witty chapters in an antiquated style.