Martin Smallridge's Blog, page 2
May 23, 2022
Being Volker

Our attitudes, especially in extreme conditions, say everything but nothing about us. For the creator, or more precisely the author, the character sketch is more than just a plan, a map of man’s traits. In a way, we become that person, although we never were and won’t be the one — at least not in our conscious mind. So if you were to ask me which of the characters of „The Mills Kept Grinding” is my favourite, by far I would say, Volker.
Perhaps it is his simplicity that makes him as predictable as our imagination allows us to believe. I created him from nothing, or rather from nobody, unlike the rest of the novel’s protagonists. Holger and Antoni, especially the second one, are snippets of people I know or have known — Antoni is mostly a reflection of my father’s fate — especially in the second half of the novel. Wainwright, conversely, could be somewhat of an alter-ego of mine, Lieutenant Adam, Captain Grzegorz and Lieutenant Bugaj are so much like my real-life friends that I even decided to keep their true names.
There is a certain injustice in the fact that the writer’s imagination is definitely limited by his experiences and the life events he has participated in, but on the other hand, if it is malleable enough, it can be shaped into a realm far beyond the limits of time and space. Thus creating a completely new quality at the beginning of the New Universe, which exists only as an impulse of this unjustly limited imagination.
Jörg Volker is precisely an example of such a character, who functions within a certain historical boundary, corresponds to the nature of the period, and yet is somehow beyond it — becoming a symbolic element thriving regardless of time. The concept of evil in historical fiction repeatedly oscillates on the edge of reality, often clinging to it like a leech to its host. I very much wished to avoid this pattern whilst creating the Jörg’s figure. I see him as an allegory of incarnate evil, but under the command of a mind where it has taken root. Volker’s apparent stupidity and pettiness dissolve like a morning haze throughout his monologues, of which there are several in the book. My idea was to build a multidimensional character, with layers like an onion, hardened and charred on the outside, but on the inside, under each coat, there’s a man with all his weaknesses, but also a handful of virtues, although in a small number, that makes him bearable.
It seems that the most important task of a writer confronting evil is to make it bearable for the reader by connecting the fate of the evil-soaked characters with the emotions of the recipient. The core of this concept is the eternal struggle between light and darkness — but is it for sure?
It seems that this perception has been exploited so many times that without much effort anyone can identify it and reproduce it imaginatively as if it were some generic pattern inscribed within our genetic code.
That is why I have made a certain turnaround here, or if you prefer, a reevaluation, by referring to a formula that is just as old and proven as the above — Goethe’s evil struggling with itself, where the lesser one can prevail (fight) the greater. Punishing injustice and meanness with the same methods that were used in the first place to achieve them. That’s Volker in a nutshell, and that’s what Holger thought of him: „One thing is for sure, Gerver was probably the only person on the entire earth to have encountered Volker’s knife and survived. So if he even feigned trench neurosis, it was the best he could do in this case., as surely Volker must seem to him an unholy force that may return any moment soon. No one bothered with this miserable man anymore, and even Behrendt in the course of time gave up investigating the truth. In the end, Volker, although not fully understanding his own role, became a “part of that force that always wills the evil and always produces the good”. Perhaps not exactly as in Goethe or Bulgakov, but nevertheless, he turned out to be the judge, punishing the injustice and wickedness of a man to whom no human nor divine laws seemed to apply.”
Can a writer dissociate himself from the figment of his imagination and at the same time give that figment a convincing touch of authenticity? It is as if a father were to deny his own child, or even worse if a mother doubted the birth claiming that the blood of her blood is in fact utterly foreign to her. While writing Volker I was very afraid of this dependence and I admit that there were moments when I had to become him — Being Volker… It is a horrible, but at the same time, strangely attractive experience to enter a completely different role, break through all the barriers and become an independent being. At times it seemed to me that it was Jörg who dictated the story and told his thoughts as I (the author) only wrote them down.
Evil is particularly attractive to us (readers and writers alike) by virtue of its foreignness. To put it simply, it is like the fruit of the orient — unknown and coveted to the point of satiation.
It is difficult to openly admit it, but particles of this malice exist in each and every one of us. It is not clear whether we are born with it, or perhaps it is sown in us by circumstances: close family, distant relatives, acquaintances etc. I do not know if we nourish it to the same extent, but the mere truth is that it lives within us and makes itself heard when we believe we know it all. Well… Do we?
So, does the writer consciously choose the way of describing evil, making it the theme of the novel, or is it by chance evil that tempts the writer with a different narrative timbre?
Maybe it is naivety on my part, but I do believe that the subject within the story picks the author. While writing “The mills kept grinding” I couldn’t help feeling that all these stories and people in some miraculous way imposed themselves upon my imagination. Resistance seemed superfluous, as deep under my skin I felt that they were born out of my personal experiences or those I had inherited in the orally transmitted traditions of family narratives. Sometimes these stories were so subjective as to almost transform into vivid images, thereby obscuring this thin line between here and now and there and then. All this mixed with childhood emotional recollections of the wild fanaticism of the North Koreans seen by my very own eyes in the mid-1980s.
I guess the cumulative experience of my parents as well as extended family combined with my later exposure to the predatory totalitarianism of the Kmirsen regime — which I touched and burned upon as a child — did its work in triggering the need to repair the world through means of the written word. I was finally helped by the image of my friends, whom I could set against evil. It gave me a certain armour, it clothed me in a suit of friendship protecting against the Volkers of all times and places.
So, what constitutes truth in a novel? For God’s sake! A writer is not a reporter, so let’s not insist on it! We feel and write with our hearts, our souls are laid bare to the blows of the outside world and we often suffer for we are a little over-sensitive to its charm. A rational choice, a story written in cold blood is like a point of light vanishing into a void amidst a raging ocean — it is bogus of all bogus! So, I never got the feeling of making a rational decision, On the contrary, many events and people participating in them, memories and dreams associated therewith, read books, heard stories and seen films… This whole marvellous and at the same time Surrealistic procession of inspirations and prompts impose themselves suddenly demanding attention. That’s why ghosts and their domain that go against rational reality are constantly invoked. Therefore, the irrational element of literary creation will always be one step ahead of the rational one since it is born out of it but slips away into something bigger and inherently better — something that each of us aspires to. Accordingly, as I see it, this irrationality resides within us alongside this element of evil, and there is also a ray of sunshine — which even Jörg was unable to resist when he rescued Frau Liselotte and Co. A novel is meant to bewitch — but that cannot be attained with a rational vision of reality where everything is as it should be.
The appearance of Volker had one essential purpose, to reduce, and if possible eliminate, the distance between the story and the reader. Nothing stirs the circulation more than the feeling of hatred and contempt against those we believe ourselves to be better from. And who among us could possibly be lesser than Volker? In this sense, he rather became my victim than I his. In a way, he is a victim of all of us, although you could say that he forced his way into the world — for we needed shade to appreciate the sunshine.
The book is available on Amazon and other retailers…
[image error]Being Volker was originally published in Agora24 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
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