Literature - Series (1) Quiet emancipations in the Heimat novel "Verschiebung im Gestein"

Mariann Bühler has been nominated for the Swiss Book Prize for her novel "Verschiebung im Gestein". Her subject matter is archaic, her storytelling free of fashionable attitudes. A confident first novel.

"Memory is a mountainous land. No easy terrain, he keeps losing the trail. Something emerges behind everything, not new, but not seen for a long time. Years pass him by. They have run through him, like cattle in spring." Alois knows his way around cattle.

He runs a farm that he inherited but didn't actually want. He still doesn't have a wife, but he has an admonishing sister. He has given up his only friend. Alois gets heavier and heavier until he can't take it anymore. Then he leases out the farm and leaves. Not quickly overseas, but on foot, with a rucksack and a map.

Three main characters

Alois is one of three main characters in the novel "Verschiebung im Gestein" by the author Mariann Bühler from Central Switzerland. In it, she condenses archaic elements of Swiss identity and masculinity: mountains that have to be conquered, cows that have to be milked, fir trees that have to be felled. Besides, "Alois has never been one to cry". Nevertheless, his hard crust eventually cracks like the earth's surface when tectonic plates shift. "The rock to the left of the gully is dark. The rock on the right is light," notes the author in one of the short geological interludes in the book. "Both rocks are steep and have risen up against each other as they meet."

It is astonishing that such a traditional book has been nominated for the 2024 Swiss Book Prize. The award, which is presented by the book trade, is usually based more on the market and zeitgeist. Mariann Bühler's language, however, seems less fashionable, more solid, steeped in Helvetisms, as solid as a rock. In Brocken, she tells of her main characters as edgy and defiant as the Swiss self-image in a globalized world. Although the observations of the rock in the Alpine setting show that a fragment of the African plate once collided with the European one, they do so poetically, not politically.

Human instead of ideological

Without judgment, Mariann Bühler accompanies not only Alois but also the second main character, Elisabeth, through their lives. Both are trapped in old gender roles. For Elisabeth, it is a question of taking control of her own life for the first time after the death of her violent husband. She takes over his orphaned bakery and does everything very differently from him. This also means that one day she has to confront her old love for a woman.

Bühler touches on topics such as sexual orientation and identity quietly and without ideological superstructure. With this novel, she has emancipated herself from being a literary organizer and presenter to become an author. After several publications in literary journals, awards and scholarships, her first novel was almost overdue. Seven years of work went into it.

Significantly, the third main character in the novel has no name. This "I" addresses the reader as "you" and speaks to a younger generation than the one to which Alois and Elisabeth belong. Like the 42-year-old author, who has lived in Basel for a long time, this character has moved away to the city. She only comes back to the village to visit - or when she needs some time out, wants to take a break, seeks clarity. "You don't miss the mountains," she says, "and yet you are reassured that they are still there when you see them again. "*

*This text by Tina Uhlmann, Keystone-SDA, was realized with the help of the Gottlieb and Hans Vogt Foundation.

SDA