In the Mountains by 'Elizabeth' (1920)

 This is another concatenation of the author's engaging with Germanness in the light of the First World War. She first did so in a pseudonymous work, Christine, which incorporated the danger of the beginning of hostilities as its sad ending. Then came the long, and acknowledged, Christopher and Columbus, which delightfully made hay with the sense of hazard of having the nationality somewhere in one's mix. Now this one, originally anonymous, set just after the war, with a traumatized Englishwoman heading back to her chalet high in the Swiss mountains for the first time in five years, and encountering a wandering duo of English women, set adrift by German alliances, and keeping secrets in order to avoid unpleasantness. 'Elizabeth' sets up the emotional bedrock position as being one of inner laceration, with her central character coming to the once beloved spot in a state of almost nervous exhaustion, hearing echoes of pre-war friends and loved ones now gone in the empty house, but finding at least the possible beginning of healing in the healthy and beautiful environment. This decided lowness is a new note in her depictions, and not at all unwelcome. Of course, at the same time, she exerts wit into the mixture, and something of the typical delight of her work comes calling. Soon she is somewhat distracted by the magnificent summer weather, walks, gardening and so on, with gently pleasing comic background provided by the Antoines, a live-in husband and wife servant pair from the old days. Then two English women come on a walk up the mountain from the scalding village below, and having been welcomed by her as rare company, then are invited to stay despite reservations. They jump at the opportunity, and she gets to know Mrs Barnes, fussy, immaculately polite to the point of exhaustion, and Dolly, her younger sister, an enigmatic and relaxed silent smiler. She registers that there are secret unknowns which Mrs Barnes, who won't leave her alone with Dolly, is zealously guarding. Finally, she and Dolly manage a clearing of the air apart in the garden, where her suspicions are confirmed, and a bit more. To the suspected German husband, long dead, has been added his German uncle a little while later as second spouse! He also is now dead. Two German husbands, and the second well in contravention of the Tables of Affinity, so a double crime. She and Dolly are so deeply in concord in their attitude to life that she's not bothered at all, though initially shocked. They echo one another soundly in their sense of live and let live and love, but Mrs Barnes, who has immolated herself on Dolly's "misbehaviour", vigilantly patrolling all talk even slightly approaching the territory, and wandering Europe ever more droopingly as her self-appointed protector, would die if she thought their 'shame' had been discovered. This tension allows 'Elizabeth' to revel in the terrors of overdone politeness, and the needlessness of the prostration which keeping secrets occasions. Just before winter the narrator's uncle appears, intending to castigate her for staying away from all which concerns her in England and, as he would see it, wallowing in the sadness which the loss of so many has forced upon her. He is an ageing dean, and suits Mrs Barnes' sense of the proprieties enormously, but inflames her concern about their ignominy to fever pitch. Instead, however, of proceeding with his rebuke of the narrator, he is fully and finally distracted by Dolly, falling head over heels for her undoubted charms. Thus ensues a terrible tussle, with Mrs Barnes never letting them alone, in case Dolly spills, and the dean becoming ruder and ruder to her as he realises that he wants to marry Dolly and can't get close to her to ask. Finally this is accomplished after agonies, and all settles to a sense of relieved pressure and satisfaction. The dean, inspired by love, couldn't allow any Germans to come between him and the apple of his eye, and Dolly is never interested in anything but complete truthfulness about them. One imagines that Mrs Barnes, who is invited to live with them after the honeymoon, would retain her fervour for not mentioning these particular parts of Dolly's history, and comedy continuing to arise from her defensive forays. This is a typically standard storyline, which has undergone specialized quality-treatment with the singular fresh charm which is one of the author's most characteristic talents.

The Cockroach by Ian McEwan (2019)

 It's great to know that the current literary world contains the wish to do something like this. It often seems quite a solemn, tamed place of too much caution, scads of humourlessness and a lack of brio. As I've been saying a lot lately about 'authors of note', this is my first McEwan. If this is any indication of the quality of the rest of his oeuvre, then I have a treat in store. It takes as a starting point a kidding reversal of The Metamorphosis, whereby a Houses of Parliament cockroach scuttles his way into Number 10 and finds himself the following morning transformed into the PM - a thinly disguised Boris Johnson. It's deftly done, with echoes of some of the crucial comments and impressions in the original about scanning unfamiliar limbs and consternation about being on one's back. But we leave Kafka behind largely at this point, instead hiving off into a satire of the Brexit period, pictured in this instance as a crazed campaign for "Reversalism", which involves paying to be at work, and shopping like mad to be given more money along with our selected goods, so that we can pay to work the next day, thus ensuring constant work and constant consumption. We discover that all the members of the cabinet are also transmogrified cockroaches, and work via their pheromonal hive mentality to get the Reversalist job done, appealing to populism, and disposing of opponents with any scheisterism necessary. Trump is canvassed as Archie Tupper, a president with the same unkenable and childish variousness of response and a party falling in with him obsequiously. There was probably scope for more here; he's limned a little lightly. There's what I think may be a complication too far toward the end, when we discover that the inhabiting cockroaches of the Reversalist period are only temporary ones, brought in to get the work completed. As they scuttle out of Downing Street in the winter gloom they miss seeing "the little creature scurrying towards Number Ten to resume its life". So, Boris is a cockroach anyway, but to get Brexit done he needed a special access of particular roachiness? But this is a lovely, heartening thing, all the same, for politics and for literature.