The Review of Contemporary Fiction

The Trip to Bordeaux, by Ludwig Harig, translated by Susan Bernofsky
reviewed by Mark Tardi

Ludwig Harig. The Trip to Bordeaux. Trans. Susan Bernofsky. Burning Deck, 2003. 103 pp. Paper: $10.00.

While German writer Ludwig Harig has earned a strong reputation in Europe over the last four decades, it’s only now that his inventive work is being translated into English. The latest volume in Burning Deck’s “Dichten =” German literature series, Harig’s marvelous novel The Trip to Bordeaux plays host to all sorts of eccentric and intriguing characters as they embark on a two-week vacation in southern France. Harig deploys short, fast-paced chapters in a number of styles, ranging from Steinian descriptions of various household chairs; to Vladimir-and-Estragonesque Socratic dialogues on the taste of a fine wine or the profit of wealth; to depicting a family’s easily defeated attempt to “rouse” themselves out of their house with Seussian absurdity; to surrealistic gunfights at a citadel, which result in the mummy of a general appearing only to get shot––again, the book provides a carnival of possibilities that would certainly make Raymond Queneau, Russell Edson, or Lewis Carroll smile. M. de Montaigne, possibly two characters, possibly not, offers reflective missives in the form of prose poems that ask questions like “What is there to say about childbirth and kidneys?” or cautions readers that “Everything published by contemporary writers, especially young ones, shall be ripped to shreds.” Merely getting the characters to and from Bordeaux in a car is to witness a stylistic bridge from Samuel Beckett to David Foster Wallace. Harig even slips in a hilarious narrative poem about turtledoves and dung beetles. The formal acrobatics are as diverse as the characters themselves and make for a book that is as unabashed as a child in a sandbox yet as contemplative as, well, a German philosopher. The result is both generously intelligent and an absolute delight to read, and one can hope only that more of Harig’s work appears in English.