The borders of frailty

Press, 11 January 1986, Page 18

The borders of frailty

The Border. By Elaine Feinstein. Methuen, 1985. 113 pp. $12.95 (paperback). (Reviewed by Margaret Quigley) This novel was first published last year and it is a great pity that its price in this paperback edition is still so high for it deserves a far wider audience than it will probably achieve. Elaine Feinstein has produced a number of novels, four volumes of poetry, and a book of short stories — all distinguished by the same remarkable combination of controlled style and raw emotion which marks this latest work. The story of “The Border” begins in Sydney in 1983 when a young American visits his unknown grandmother living “enclosed in a piece of Central Europe” above Rushcutters’ Bay. The boy has come to learn what she knew of the German-Jewish essayist, Walter Benjamin, but he discovers instead the anguished memories which haunt the old lady. Inge allows him to read the diaries she and her husband, Hans Wendler, kept in Vienna and Paris in 1938.

The gradual disintegration of their marriage as Hans becomes involved with a young student at the university

where he teaches causes Inge to examine her own ambitions as a scientist and as a ! wife. Her clearer perceptions, both of their personal situation and of the political realities in Europe, cause intolerable tension. As they flee before the advancing German forces they reach a political and metaphorical border which they are unable to cross safely together. The final scenes of the drama are related by the old woman to her grandson in a restrained manner which intensifies the pain. “The Border” is a beautifully written book which compels the reader’s attention on different levels. An exciting thriller, it also explores human frailty and treachery in both political and sexual matters. The formal elegance of its shaping and style emphasises the profound grief and remorse of the narrator. “In the massacres around us, one man’s death counts little with God. What is important must be living out your own life, not someone else’s. My own failure weighs all the more heavily upon me. For this failure to understand I am in need, for ever, of Hans’ pardon, and can never win it now he is dead.” It is a memorable and moving novel.