Shift in the rock
German, Atlantis, 2024
“The valley is narrow. There is only room for one road in it, with a few villages strung along it.”
“Alois mumbles something about the right person and then, in a few sentences, gives an overview of the years since he took over the farm, saying that little has changed in that time, except that he stopped keeping pigs so that he could keep up with everything, and he only spends his winters in his own forest.”
“She put the tray in the oven and watched as the loaf rose, developed a crust, the crust cracked, turned brown, and the dough became bread.”
In her debut novel Shift in the rock, Mariann Bühler traces the lives of three characters in a remote Swiss mountain valley, whose stories become more and more intertwined as the novel progresses.
Alois is a farmer who has taken over his parents’ farm. He lives in seclusion and, apart from his sister and her family, encounters very few people until Ruth moves in temporarily.
Elisabeth ran a village bakery for many years with her husband Jakob until his unexpected death. His passing turns Elisabeth’s life upside down, despite her marriage to him not being a happy one.
A young woman, who is directly addressed as ‘you’ in the text, travels alone to her grandparents’ remote holiday home, where she had experienced defining childhood moments.
These three characters all lead seemingly unspectacular lives, connected to the same remote mountain valley. Only gradually does it become apparent that changes are taking place in their lives and that something has been brewing beneath the surface for some time. The figures break away from their routine and emancipate themselves. They leave or come back—or take their lives into their own hands.
Shift in a rock is a calm, delicate novel, written in gentle language and with great care for the characters. The characters get by without many words but speak with subtle gestures—the author places great emphasis on the accurate description of everyday routines such as milking, baking bread, and chopping wood. These work processes are described meticulously, presenting a unique portrayal of the characters and their lives.
All the characters are lonely in their own way and are going through inner changes that gradually come to the surface. As time goes by, it becomes increasingly clear that within the confines—both geographical and emotional—there is room for manoeuvre that the characters gradually explore. However, much remains in limbo in this text; not all secrets are revealed.
The three narrative strands for the three characters are cleverly interrupted by short snippets about the geography of the valley, including descriptions of how the stream forces its way through the valley, a view of the valley as though from a map, information about a channel that runs through the valley and along which tectonic plates meet, descriptions of shifting rocks. These episodes reflect the events in the three stories and repeatedly draw back to nature and the mountain valley as further protagonists of the text.
Text by Martina Keller
- Title
- Verschiebung im Gestein
- Publisher
- Atlantis
- Translation rights
- Daniela Koch, koch@atlantisverlag.ch
- Publication date
- 2024
- Pages
- 208
- ISBN
- 978-3-7152-5040-3
- Awards
- Weinfelder Buchpreis
Author
Mariann Bühler
Born in 1982 near Lucerne, Switzerland, Mariann Bühler studied English literature and linguistics, Islamic studies and gender studies in Basel and Berlin. The author, literary agent and event organiser lives in Basel. Shift in the rock is her debut novel; she was awarded the Central Swiss Literature Prize for an excerpt from the manuscript.
Photo: © Ayse Yavas