Living German II: The mother does nothing. She sits.

After the last trip to Cologne, we are now heading to Miesbach, the village, where “The Family” lives. The Family has no surname. Reminds me a bit of la famiglia, whichoften refers to the Mafia groups. But as the language book is written in post-war Germany, I guess that the Italian guest workers were just about to find themselves miserable in Italy, so there was no scene for la famiglia in Germany – yet.

In chapter 3 “Was macht die Familie?” (“What is the family doing?”), we get to know the family members a bit better. They are:

-       Anton, the father, teaches, tells anecdotes

-       Marie, the mother, sings, domestic habits

-       Liesel, the daughter, characterless

-       Karl, the son, musical

-       the dog, old and lazy

-       the kitten, young and playful
-    Paula, appears mysteriously in the text

All in all an average family in Bavaria. I think the names are becoming en vogue again.

While the readers are sweating over the accusative case of the German language, they are being indoctrinated about roles of old-fashioned German families. Again, the book is written in the 50s but published, like that, in the 80s. By R.W. Buckley, M.A., a „Lecturer in German, Technical College, Coventry. The suffragettes didn’t come to Coventry I guess.

The hobbies of the kids are boring: Liesel is playing in the garden, Karl is playing the violin (first indication of a middle-class family). The mother sings. Hopefully well.

So the story goes like this:

“Anton doesn’t play when Liesel plays: he is working. He is a teacher (second indication of German Bildungsbürgertum, 60 years later also named as Wutbürger). The village has a school and Anton is the schoolteacher there. He is a village schoolteacher (God, yes I think we all got that).

But Anton plays in the evening: he plays the piano: he is musical. Also his son, Karl, is musical and plays the violin. Marie doesn’t play an instrument. She sings. (I guess very badly, because it is not indicated that she is musical too, but probably she doesn’t have a lot of time to practice because:)

What does the mother do, when Anton works and Liesel plays? (probably shagging the postman) She works too. (does the postman give her money?) Her work is big (and sinful), because the house isn’t small. (damn the Bourgeoisie!)

Marie cleans the house. (Booh) She makes every bed and cleans every bedroom. She cooks. (shame that there are no wives of the guest workers yet, they could do the cleaning and Marie could concentrate on her singing and paint some watercolours of the Bavarian landscape) The house has one kitchen, where the mother cooks. The kitchen is nice and clean. (sedulous mother).

The Family, apparently Paula looks like a boy?

Every child has one bedroom but the house only has one living room. The living room is where one sits and lives. (well, I do live also in other rooms, but maybe the family has transcendental experiences in the other rooms and can only be down-to-earth there). Here Anton plays the piano. Here Marie sings in the evenings (you wannabe rockstar). She likes to sing.

The father drinks wine or beer, the mother likes to drink coffee (Marie has to be sober to cook, the father has to relief himself from the school stress), Paula and Karl like to drink tea (Paula??) and Liesel drinks milk. (Wait, who is Paula?)

The day is nice, but it has come to an end (the arc of suspense!). The sun isn't shining anymore. Because it is evening and then comes the night. Liesel doesn’t play in the evening, she sleeps. What does Marie do? She doesn’t do anything. She sits. (no comment) What does Karl do? He also has work. He is studying. (but lives still at home). He likes to study his book. (I think he never had a girlfriend. Or boyfriend.) He works day and night. (At least that’s what the parents think)”

So, a typical evening with the family: father comes home, eats, drinks, plays the piano, drinks, tells anecdotes, drinks. The mother sings a bit, and sits and watches her husband getting drunk. What a middle class family.