Die Diplomatin by Lucy Fricke

 

For more than one reason, I am interested in literary representations of diplomats, preferably contemporary, best if the main character is a woman. I don´t remember too many such possibilities, therefore I was more than interested to have access as soon as possible at the book called ´The (woman) Diplomat´ (Die Diplomatin, in the original german language) by the German author Lucy Fricke. 

Friederike is in her late 40s, a single woman, from a modest background. She entered the diplomatic service dreaming to make a difference - does ´I wanted to understand the world´, count? -, but ended up entangled in a consular failure in Montevideo and a couple of years after, another consular incident in Turkey. She has a one night stand with a journalist that himself was in a delicate situation in Turkey. 

Friederike has an institutional voice which may contradict her relatively erratic behavior, with a touch of arrogance that unfortunately is quite common to some contemporary German novels where there is an encounter between the German citizen and the rest of the world. There is irony and a bit of humour too, which are always a matter of taste. 

It ends with an image of the German flag blowing in the wind, and Friederike is mentioned at least twice being involved in activities related to the preparation of the German National Day - 3rd of October, The Day of German Unity.

It is an understatement to say that I was largely disappointed about the book, although there are some well suited references to real diplomatic intricacies - the fact that, among others, consular service is usually the highest resilience test of a diplomat that can either destroy or promote your career. The ironies about the under-superpower Germany may bring a smile or too.

But unfortunatelly, the action took over the representation of the characters and Friederike sounded very simple for the role she was assigned. Her disillusioning is cartoonish, given her unprofessional behavior and her experience and eventual dedication to her profession seem to be overrated for the sake of a stereotypical character. At times, it looked like an image - of a diplomat - was cut from a piece of paper and blew from one part to another of the story, just like the German flag in the wind.

There is a good news about this though: the hope that, who knows, one day there will be a great book about a real woman diplomat, hopefully with a good sense of humour as well.

Rating: 3 stars