The Ship by Hans Henny Jahnn

German fiction

Original title – Das Holzschiff

Translator – Catherine Hutter

Source – Personal copy

I discovered a while ago that several old Peter Owen books are now available as print-on-demand titles. Owen had a great back catalogue in a way they were fitzcarraldo before fitzcarraldo, they had some noble winners and writers that were just brilliant, as in this case, Hans Henny Jahnn has been on my radar, I thin,k since I was working one summer in a German factory with some university students and we played a guessing game of writers artist and such this name came up and for years I had want to read this book as my german wouldn’t be good enough ton get through all three volumes of this is part one wood ship of a river without banks from Henny. Henny was a writer who was best known =for his other job as an organ builder. He escaped Germany during both world wars, first in Norway, where he farmed. He also attempted to establish his own religion, being deeply drawn to the natural world and traditional religious ideas that were pre Christian in the way he looked at the world.

“The interior of a ship,” said the captain. “A mysterious sight for a novice.” But a few further thoughts came to him-that a hull was not a cathedral, but the walls of water all around it created a festive atmosphere to which only a hardened soul could be insensible. Just as the pit of a mine was a hollow amid rock, a ship was a hole in the water in which lungs could breathe. A human being had to fear mountains and water. A single piece of ashlar lying somewhere along the road bore witness, in its very immovability, to how much the flesh stood in need of protection, and how negligible was the weaponless hand. The beautiful law of the curve, reflected in the ribs of a ship, heightened the feeling of exaltation that emanated from the laden craft, from the being hemmed in by an element that was denser than air.

“People like to enliven the mysterious with their own fan-tasies.” The captain picked up the conversation where he had left off. “They imagine creatures like themselves, but invul-nerable, armed with a cloak that makes them invisible, with magic potions, and on ships they believe in ghosts. They hear their voices, they hear the noises of their secret activities, they have to be. And faith demands that there be a secret hiding place where they live.”

Hints at how the ship is more than it seems.

The ship is one of those books that is unique, quirky, and odd, yet in a way, nothing happens, but so much does. It is about a wooden ship with blood-red sails and the super cargo held in a box nailed to the ground. It is about Captain Waldermar Strunck, his daughter Ellena, and her lover, Gustav. Gustav has stowawayed on the boat. They are taken the mysterious cargo, the supercargo, somewhere. Still, the ship itself, as the voyage heads on, sort of becomes alive as they start to travel the shape of the inside to the ship moves and evoles it seems there is a sense of weird things happening a darkness around the ship and the crew, so much so that after a storm, a lot of crew disappear. All this is slowly unwound. This is a book about the strange, unknown, and how the mind plays tricks on you. This is the first part of a trilogy, and let’s hope someone will eventually revisit and complete all three books.

Suddenly the fog descended like rain. Cold squalls nestled in the sails. The ship listed to leeward, groaning. Waldemar Strunck came hurrying along the deck, out of breath. His command was unexpected. “Bring the ship around.” The sailors were roused from their duties. Their feet slapped on the deck planking. Everyone hurried to his station, singing. They tore at the block-and-tackle— an ordinary maneuver-but now it took place in a hurry. The captain’s mood had changed, noticeably. His brow was furrowed. And the commands of the man at the helm were tense. The second helmsman ran from aft to port and back again. A few minutes later quite a few of the men broke out in a sweat. All anybody knew was that the barometer had fallen threateningly fast.

Strange weather and things as they sail

Jahnnis one of those writers I wanted to read I have a minimal list of writer that have books that are either out of print or just very hard to get hold of to read. Jahnn was near the top of that list. I love the rabbit holes of literature, of going from A to B, and have a list of writers in old notebooks that I want to explore at a later date. To me, this book is like one of those films you watch where nothing much happens, but everything unfolds like a Bela Tarr film – a slow, unwinding narrative and a sense of dread about the world. I wonder if Krasnahorkai has read him. I can’t find anything online, but the ship has a similar eerie feel to the whale in his books. There is also a sense that maybe some loved puzzle boxes and the working of the organs he built, Jahnn, the way wood can sometimes be made to look whole, but then, with a push and twist, secrets are revealed. This book is like those small parts become bigger, and we discover things inside that weren’t there at first glance. This is one of those books that should be better known but is maybe too different to anything else to be that well known ? Have you read or heard of Hans Henny Jahnn ?