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lobelia321Hannah Sommer, Die Hypochonderin, nr.1449 in the Bastei-Lübbe series 'Die Notärztin', 2022
You know how people say 'curl up with a good book'? Well, I sometimes like to curl up with a trashy book. And this hit just that spot. Hence, if you are expecting literary quality from a four-star-rating, be disabused: these stars are because this novel does exactly what it says on the tin. It furnishes a no-challenge, low-conflict, short-sentence, clichéd-emotion, nice-people experience, and is a super-quick read.
If you do not know what a German Arztroman in the format of a Bastei-Lübbe 'Heftroman' is, imagine 80 or so pages, printed with quite-large font on cheap paper, stapled together at the back, no cardboard cover but just a magazine-style semi-glossy paper cover, available for a cheap price at those rotating stands that you find in railway stations and at newspaper kiosks. In Germany, these used to be known as 'Kolportageromane' (watch the German movie 'M', directed by Fritz Lang in 1931, to see a door-to-door Kolportage salesman in action). These 'Heftromane' come in diverse genres: science fiction (Perry Rhodan), Westerns, and mostly romance: medical romance (Arztroman), mountain romance (Bergroman), aristocracy romance (Adelsroman, sometimes set in the past in what used to be Eastern Prussia), rural romance (Heimatroman) and I don't even know what other subsets. They are like Mills & Boone / Harlequin off-speed, if that makes sense.
This was my first Arztroman / medical romance. It was a hoot. The medical aspect veers between technical terms that sound like something pasted in from Wikipedia, and totally lay let's-play-doctor descriptions (as when the doctor takes out her stethoscope and immediately pronounces on the patient's blood pressure and fever: what all a stethoscope can measure!). The doctors are invariably good-looking, responsible, kind and competent. They save lives. They never complain about pay, hours, cutting of funds, health policies, or anything else that seems to be the bread and butter of hard-hitting hospital series and also the news. In this particular Roman, they are also all white. They are also nearly all men (in fact, the reason I chose this one is because it is part of the series 'Notärztin Andrea Berger' about a woman emergency doctor; this is number 1449 of the series, no less). Kudos to diversity: there is one gay doctor. But un-kudos to diversity: one character does not want to be seen as 'emotionally crippled' (emotional verkrüppelt) which manages to be offensive both in terms of mental health and physical disability all at once.
The people eat reassuringly (or is it reassuring?) German Hausmannskost (I'm imagining Yorkshire pudding or toad in the hole as the English equivalent). Personally and as an expat, I enjoyed reading about these meals of which pizza is the most 'exotic': Schnitzel with veg, pancake with Kompott, Wurstbrot with radishes, grilled chicken with Pommes frites and chocolate pudding with whipped cream for desert, potato-Auflaug with a cheese-cream-sauce. And of course, Kuchen, Kuchen, Kuchen: black forest cake, Frankfurter Kranz and others.
The language is simple and enjoyable un-hip. None of the Netflixisms and Anglicisms that I read in books by Melanie Raabe or Kerstin Gier (and I notice these things because the last time I actually lived in Germany was 1991). I relish the old-fashioned vibe of vocab like: Posteingang, Chatverlauf, Lebensgefährte (life companion - I so prefer this to partner which, to me, has business connotations), Bademeister, 'dass auch ich ein Päckchen zu tragen habe'. And I do like reading 'schmunzeln' and 'verschmitzt' which have no exact English translation.
And can you beat this for a clichéd and tritely expressed happily-ever-after? 'Endlich hatte sie ihr Glück gefunden, und sie waren beide fest entschlossen, es nie wieder loszulassen. E N D E.' / 'Finally they had found their happiness, and they were both very determined never to let it go again. T H E E N D.'
Format: Unfortunately, I am unable to get the analogue version of these stapled goodies so had to make do with an e-book. It could have done with some proofreading as there were quite a lot of sentences with words missing from the middle.
Chosen for the #readingwomenchallenge2018, prompt 'genre I've never read'. Also fulfillsbookasaurusbex's Diverse Reading Challenge 2022, prompt 'main character works in STEM'.
Crossposted to Goodreads: picturetalk321
You know how people say 'curl up with a good book'? Well, I sometimes like to curl up with a trashy book. And this hit just that spot. Hence, if you are expecting literary quality from a four-star-rating, be disabused: these stars are because this novel does exactly what it says on the tin. It furnishes a no-challenge, low-conflict, short-sentence, clichéd-emotion, nice-people experience, and is a super-quick read.
If you do not know what a German Arztroman in the format of a Bastei-Lübbe 'Heftroman' is, imagine 80 or so pages, printed with quite-large font on cheap paper, stapled together at the back, no cardboard cover but just a magazine-style semi-glossy paper cover, available for a cheap price at those rotating stands that you find in railway stations and at newspaper kiosks. In Germany, these used to be known as 'Kolportageromane' (watch the German movie 'M', directed by Fritz Lang in 1931, to see a door-to-door Kolportage salesman in action). These 'Heftromane' come in diverse genres: science fiction (Perry Rhodan), Westerns, and mostly romance: medical romance (Arztroman), mountain romance (Bergroman), aristocracy romance (Adelsroman, sometimes set in the past in what used to be Eastern Prussia), rural romance (Heimatroman) and I don't even know what other subsets. They are like Mills & Boone / Harlequin off-speed, if that makes sense.
This was my first Arztroman / medical romance. It was a hoot. The medical aspect veers between technical terms that sound like something pasted in from Wikipedia, and totally lay let's-play-doctor descriptions (as when the doctor takes out her stethoscope and immediately pronounces on the patient's blood pressure and fever: what all a stethoscope can measure!). The doctors are invariably good-looking, responsible, kind and competent. They save lives. They never complain about pay, hours, cutting of funds, health policies, or anything else that seems to be the bread and butter of hard-hitting hospital series and also the news. In this particular Roman, they are also all white. They are also nearly all men (in fact, the reason I chose this one is because it is part of the series 'Notärztin Andrea Berger' about a woman emergency doctor; this is number 1449 of the series, no less). Kudos to diversity: there is one gay doctor. But un-kudos to diversity: one character does not want to be seen as 'emotionally crippled' (emotional verkrüppelt) which manages to be offensive both in terms of mental health and physical disability all at once.
The people eat reassuringly (or is it reassuring?) German Hausmannskost (I'm imagining Yorkshire pudding or toad in the hole as the English equivalent). Personally and as an expat, I enjoyed reading about these meals of which pizza is the most 'exotic': Schnitzel with veg, pancake with Kompott, Wurstbrot with radishes, grilled chicken with Pommes frites and chocolate pudding with whipped cream for desert, potato-Auflaug with a cheese-cream-sauce. And of course, Kuchen, Kuchen, Kuchen: black forest cake, Frankfurter Kranz and others.
The language is simple and enjoyable un-hip. None of the Netflixisms and Anglicisms that I read in books by Melanie Raabe or Kerstin Gier (and I notice these things because the last time I actually lived in Germany was 1991). I relish the old-fashioned vibe of vocab like: Posteingang, Chatverlauf, Lebensgefährte (life companion - I so prefer this to partner which, to me, has business connotations), Bademeister, 'dass auch ich ein Päckchen zu tragen habe'. And I do like reading 'schmunzeln' and 'verschmitzt' which have no exact English translation.
And can you beat this for a clichéd and tritely expressed happily-ever-after? 'Endlich hatte sie ihr Glück gefunden, und sie waren beide fest entschlossen, es nie wieder loszulassen. E N D E.' / 'Finally they had found their happiness, and they were both very determined never to let it go again. T H E E N D.'
Format: Unfortunately, I am unable to get the analogue version of these stapled goodies so had to make do with an e-book. It could have done with some proofreading as there were quite a lot of sentences with words missing from the middle.
Chosen for the #readingwomenchallenge2018, prompt 'genre I've never read'. Also fulfills
bookasaurusbex's Diverse Reading Challenge 2022, prompt 'main character works in STEM'.Crossposted to Goodreads: picturetalk321
