Sophie Hunger's debut novel | Building your own world

Sophie Hunger's songs have a very special poetry. One wonders: What genre is it ? Is it jazz, rock, pop—or techno? Her first novel, from 2008, is titled after one of her old songs: "Waltz for Nobody," written in her typically mystical, poetic language. It works just as well over 180 pages as it does in a three- or four-minute song.

"Nobody" is the first-person narrator's friend. Both grow up as children of military attachés in Switzerland. They are forced to move frequently and build their own world in which the outside world, which constantly seems to threaten their friendship, is supposed to be nonexistent.

The narrator discovers her love of music: Bruce Springsteen , Nina Simone, and even Richard Wagner. This allows one to cheat time, as one can listen to it again and again. The idea that a record could wear out the more it is listened to seems horrible to her. The basic rule applies: the music must not be interrupted; it must be listened to until the end.

No one researches the origin story of the narrator, who is descended from the Walsers, a Swiss mountain people who knew no art or culture, but only bare reality, consisting of sounds, views and movements.

The Walser women seem to be a naturalistic ideal of the narrator, overwhelmed by the here and now, who trusts neither the world nor any narrative, nor language itself. "We liked (language) only in its nebulous, somnambulistic form (...) No, no, we never expected language to be precise; we recognized it in its deep unrest." She considers stringent, linear stories "disgusting and suffocating."

No one is a refuge for her. But the more successful she becomes with her music, the more they drift apart.

Contrary to what some blurbs or reviews suggest, the book is not a story of friendship, but rather the story of growing up alone in a world one is not meant for. No one is without body or character, and ultimately, through the use of the informal "you," they appear to be mere projections. Hunger itself does not prescribe a reading.

Her language is full of adjectives and images. They are almost never unambiguous. This creates a world of its own, and it's almost unclear whether the reader is even meant to enter it. You have to literally dig into this writing consciousness, which, while narrated in the most intimate way, remains closed, which narrates but refuses to make itself understood.

This is a style of writing you have to get involved with. Trying to find meaning behind every image won't get you very far; the formulations are too vague and antithetical. As with Hunger's songs, it's about the feeling an image evokes.

Hunger's musical language can carry you away. At the same time, this text borders on overload and pathetic. The introspection and lack of action further reinforce this. This isn't a book you can browse in five spare minutes. Once you're immersed in the language of the text, it's a pleasant read; if you're too distracted, it collapses like a house of cards.

The themes are similar to those in Hunger's lyrics. There's a longing for an indescribably clear world; solitude and the transience of time play a role. "There's a theory among songwriters—I don't know if it's perhaps even similar for writers—that says: You basically always write the same song, just in different variations," Hunger said in an interview with Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland. She asked herself "which song could be for me that phenotypically represents all my works." That's how she came up with this title for her novel.

Nevertheless, it's a story about fictional characters. Reviewers who once again try to impose autobiographical elements on a book written by a woman are underestimating the book.

Sophie Hunger: Waltz for Nobody. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 192 pp., hardcover, €22.