I´ve read everything Lana Lux published until now and I am never disappointed, particularly due to her deep understanding of human feelings in extreme circumstances and the unique insights on abuse and abusive relationships.
Her latest, Geordnete Verhältnisse - my approximate translation is Ordinary circumstances, but I am not a German literary translator so always happy for better variants - has as main topic an abusive relationship. Faina is an innocent immigrant from the ex-Soviet Union who moved in a remote locality in Germany. There she met Philipp, a bizarre young man, with an alcoholic abusive single mother and a precarious anger management and an obsession for order.
The story is told chronologically, from each of the two main participants, and each side has an intensive, emotionally-fuelled story to tell. It follows at certain extents the pattern of abuse that may appear only later in a relationship: screening the weaknesses, exploiting the needs, using bits of private information, stalking of all kinds. Abusive relationship do not happen over night, and in this case, it is the result of an elaborate work of emotional manipulations.
Lana Lux is wasting no time in terms of building the ambiance and the connections between characters, in such elaborated ways that the building of abuse is so obvious and clear to anyone who may wander how does it actually happens. Without acknowledging it until it is too late. She has a special deep knowledge on abuse and the different ways in which individuals, especially women, may react or submit to it.
The topic is hard and emotionally loaded, by extremely well written and storified. Wish it was included in this year´s German Booker longlist.
Rating: 5 stars
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