Fiction:History holds all the answers; for some it might even offer the best chance of escape. It definitely provides the sole haven for Burt Hecker, eccentric narrator of US-born, Berlin-based Tod Wodicka's wacky debut.
Hecker is a man with more than his share of difficulties, in that his life, as well as his face, has been dominated by his enormous nose. Then there is his oddness and the tragic death of his beloved wife, Kitty, main provider and owner of the family hotel. Added to that is his aggressively crazy eastern European mother-in-law and his hostile adult children. Above all, poor Tod is apparently stuck in an unforgiving 21st century when he really works at being a medieval man, from drinking large amounts of home-made mead to favouring the garb of a 14th-century monk.
Confused? Never fear. Old Tod is bonkers for sure and a self-absorbed nincompoop, but he is also a grieving widower, sensitive, intelligent and sufficiently likeable to sustain the interest of all but the most hard-hearted of readers. The empathy is evident. In a characteristic aside, he observes: "Night falls and I look for stars. But they are precious few with all the headlights and street lights and the dull, watery glow of civilisation." He is, as he explains, "a medieval re-enactor". Following his arrest by a New York policeman who charges him with driving a "borrowed" vehicle which he is incapable of driving and for which he has no licence, Tod recalls: "They'd [the New York police] never detained anybody dressed in period-specific, historically accurate costume before, and once installed in the Queens Falls police depot I was treated genially, like a time traveler who couldn't comprehend the vigorous modernity which had enveloped him. Because I was old they supposed I was demented."
Tod, it seems, presents something of a challenge for any law enforcer, particularly as he insists the year is AD 1256. Early in the opening stages of this picaresque-with-a-difference, Tod, having recreated the terrifying introduction to religious life experienced by young Hildegard Von Bingen, places his plight in context: "History, when you devote your life to it, can be either a weight into a premature old age or a release from the troublesome, promiscuous present: eternal immaturity as an occupational boon. Since I was thirty, most have considered me retired, unemployed, or fundamentally unemployable. I have devoted my adult life to amateur scholarship and the Confraternity of Times Lost Regained, the re-enactment society I founded. I've since been left a considerable fortune." As the upbeat title suggests, this is no standard coming-of-age novel.
Wodicka is original and writes an efficient, precise prose that quickly enables Burt to establish a conversational tone that inspires confidence in what he is about to divulge; Wodicka also believes in having fun and this novel is fun for most of the journey. Interestingly, although 31 years of age, he does not feature in the Granta's recent Best of Young American Novelists selection - possibly he lacks the required genetic diversity. Much of the appeal of the narrative, particularly in the opening sequences is Wodicka's evocation of medieval Europe in all its squalor, a squalor he then effectively balances against its present-day sprawl.
He laments modern Germany as a "most non-historical kingdom" - anyone who has visited west Berlin which looks very like west Dublin, will sigh in recognition. Only the violence of West Dublin is missing."Safe, well-ordered, tame, all mystery long since burned away in the conflagrations of this last century" and on he muses, before deferring to the power of the past in one of the most fascinating observations in the book: "Still, it's not difficult to peel back the facade and poke around into what once was. I imagine the puddle-pocked autobahn which once carried 14th-century peddlers, merchants and their pack trains, tax collectors, knights, monks, pilgrims, wandering scholars, jongleurs, prostitutes, madmen, bishops and pardoners and murderers and horses. I imagine horses running alongside our vehicle, past candlelit windows, ponds, spires, past the citadels, inns, and wattle and daub villages with names no one now living has ever spoken." This is the shudder any history buff experiences on arrival in towns such as Eurfurt or Weimar, when sensing the historic layers beneath the present-day surface, the random impressions, the shadows, the ghosts.
Burt heads off to Germany with a group of women who enjoy singing medieval chant. Intent on celebrating the composer Hildegard von Bingen's 900th birthday, they allow Burt to lock them into a tent, thus replicating Hildegard's time in an anchorage. All of this is well handled by Wodicka, who makes fine use of the time shifts. Even better is Burt's outrage on seeing historic re-enactment given a sterile treatment; he respects the stench of the authentic and resents modern standards of hygiene being applied to the past.
Just when it seems that Burt's story is going to be that of a failed history teacher transformed into a determinedly authentic 14th-century monk, reality seeps through. Burt is looking for his son, Tristan, who has changed his name to Tim. The trail leads to Prague, where everyone now appears to need the reassurance of a screaming television. Burt's parallel universe, suspended as it is between the present and the past, is eventually taken over by the resentments festering in any dysfunctional family. Suddenly the narrative begins to sound like one of John Irving's better novels. Kitty, Burt's dead wife, injects some element of common sense and her slow death explains part of the oddness that is Burt.
Anna, his mother-in-law, and his grown children, the half-hearted son and the hysterical daughter, are never more than bit players, even though hapless dad Burt, or at least his heavy-handed lady lawyer, did sell the family hotel and income without consulting anyone. Wodicka is at his best when evoking the fractured faces of a Europe entrenched in a bland present yet still answering to its history. The Hecker family saga never really asserts itself as more than a sideshow. Yet history prevails; Kitty knew how life would be. Burt remembers how she told him: "Life is going to be hard for me and the kids with someone like you doddering about dressed up as a 14th-century monk . . . I'll have the Mansion [the family hotel] and you your Middle Ages . . ." Kitty supplies the saving common sense, and allows Wodicka to pursue a sackful of whimsy in a fun read possessed of some invention and the occasional barb that eventually runs out of steam but not without having endeared itself.
Eileen Battersby is Literary Correspondent of The Irish Times
All Shall Be Well; And All Shall Be Well; And All Manner of Things Shall Be Well By Tod Wodicka Cape, 264pp. £11.99
