The Life of Objects

by Susanna Moore Narrated by Cassandra Campbell

Overview

This elegant, haunting novel from the award-winning author of In The Cut and The Whiteness of Bones, set in Germany on the eve of the Second World War, is the story of one woman's journey of self-discovery as a continent collapses into darkness.

Beatrice, a young Irish Protestant lace maker, finds herself at the center of a fairy tale, whisked away from her humdrum life by a mysterious countess to join the Berlin household of the Metzenburgs, an enchanting, aristocratic couple whose vast holdings of art include a priceless collection of lace. But as Beatrice is introduced to the highly rarified world of affluence and art collecting, the greater drama of Germany's aggression begins to overshadow it.

Retreating with Beatrice to their country estate, the Metzenburgs do their best to ignore the encroaching war, until the realities of hunger and illness, as well as the even graver dangers of Nazi terror-the deportation and murder of Jews, hordes of refugees fleeing the advancing Red Army-begin to threaten their very existence. While the Metzenburgs become the virtual lord and lady of a growing population of men and women in hiding, Beatrice, increasingly attached to the family and its unlikely wartime community, bears heartrending witness to the atrocities of the age.

Editorial Reviews

The Washington Post

…nothing is obvious in this exquisitely written novel. The Life of Objects is a refined and sensual treat.
—Carolyn See

Publishers Weekly

In Moore’s (In the Cut) latest novel, objects have complicated lives—they’re bought, collected, requisitioned, buried, stolen, sold, and bartered—and so do people. It’s Germany during WWII, and strange and awful occurrences are becoming common. Even the rich and politically connected Felix and Dorothea Metzenburg can no longer guarantee their safety—or that of Beatrice Palmer, the book’s narrator, who, in a series of unlikely circumstances, has come from Ireland to work for them. The bulk of the story takes place on Dorothea’s country estate, to which the family, with 23 wagons of Felix’s art and objects, retreat when Berlin becomes untenable. There the war switches between a distant rumor on illegal radio broadcasts and, with food shortages, disappearances, and bombings, a reality. It becomes clear that Felix’s moral and aesthetic sensibilities will not allow him to cooperate with the National Socialist state. Although the book starts slowly, once we’re accustomed to Beatrice’s measured style, she’s an appealing, sometimes touching guide to a world where luxury and devastation coexist; friends may be spies; a Cranach painting means less than the potatoes it buys; all kinds of refugees seek safety on the estate; relationships change; and safety, although not love, is illusory. Agent: Stephanie Cabot, the Gernert Agency. (Sept.)

From the Publisher

Spellbinding. . . . If the Brothers Grimm had tackled the rise and fall of the Third Reich, they might well have produced a tale that reads like The Life of Objects.” —Maureen Corrigan, NPR, “Fresh Air”
 
“I find this book exhilarating—truly exciting, new, everything good—the people, the clothes, the food: every word.” —Joan Didion, author of Blue Nights 
 
 “A refined and sensual treat.” —The Washington Post
 
“Thrilling, enchanting. . . . Imagine Downton Abbey crossed with In the Garden of Beasts as fashioned by a literary master at the peak of her powers.” —Kurt Andersen, author of True Believers

“Wonderful. . . . Exquisite. . . . A miracle of clarity and beauty. It’s the kind of book I read and think, this is why I do this. . . . It’s because it’s possible to write books like this, and because books like this exist in the world.” —Emily St. John Mandel, The Millions

“Undeniably powerful. . . . Moore’s an extremely assured novelist, and her themes here ring out  … War changes everyone, and nothing is promised to us forever, not even each other.” —Entertainment Weekly  

“Nearly flawless. So much can happen in a sentence, by such slight (to the reader) but rigorous and elegant means. I nearly gasped at some parts. And there is something gravely and humanly funny about others.” —Alec Wilkinson, author of The Ice Balloon

“Subtle and acutely written.” —The Boston Globe

“A frightening and wholly convincing evocation of life in Germany during the twilight of the Third Reich.” —J. M. Coetzee, author of Summertime

“The Metzenburgs’ world is just as astounding to Beatrice as it would be to any modern reader stepping out of a time machine. . . . Moore manages to span the entirety of World War II in a way that is impressively thorough and demonstrates that even the most privileged weren’t immune to its ravages.” —Daily News
 
“The Life of Objects isn’t long but it gives the full sweep of the Nazi reign and the Soviet occupation. Its details are so convincing, it reads like a memoir not a novel—a magnificent achievement.” —Edmund White, author of Jack Holmes and His Friend

“A marvelous book, devastating in its simplicity. It’s a beautifully controlled examination of a life stripped, like a body in wartime, of inessentials. I love the fact that kindness—though not sentimentality—turns out to be an essential. But for me the heart of the matter is Moore’s language: as strong as plainchant, and as beautiful.” —Nicola Griffith, author of The Blue Place and Ammonite

“The Life of Objects is absolutely gripping in the precision of its wartime narrative, and chilling in its evocation of a fidelity to the sensuality of this world in the face of the most deeply cynical of the world’s capacities.  This extraordinary novel speaks to class, emigration and tragedy in our time as devastatingly as Buddenbrooks spoke to Thomas Mann’s own young century.” —Susan Wheeler, winner of the Witter Bynner Prize for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts & Letters

“An unsparing look at a country’s disintegration.” —More

“In The Life of Objects, Susanna Moore tells the story of a young woman’s initiation into the worlds of beauty, suffering, cynicism, and grace. What astounds me about this work is its ability to attend with equal fidelity to the quiet nuances of self-discovery and the deceptions and depravities of World War II. This is a lyrical and courageous book.” —Tracy K. Smith, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry

Library Journal

In Susanna Moore’s unusual novel of World War II and its aftermath, The Life of Objects (Knopf. ISBN 9780307268433. $25), Beatrice Palmer, a teenage Irish lace maker, spends the war on the German estate of a couple of decadent but principled aesthetes. Her hosts’ taste and character work mightily on Beatrice: they generously offer protection to assorted wanderers while enduring the theft and destruction of their exquisite belongings. Moore’s theme of buried treasure is apt for a story that probes boldly, and sometimes disturbingly, into the question of what shapes who we become.

(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

JANUARY 2013 - AudioFile

In 1938, Beatrice dreams of escaping her provincial Irish village and her emotionally distant parents. When given the chance to move to Berlin to work for the wealthy Metzenburgs, she leaves almost immediately, staying in Germany for the duration of the war. Cassandra Campbell narrates with a girlish Irish lilt, which perfectly projects Beatrice's naivete when she escapes to the Continent and is awestruck by the lives of the rich. Unfortunately, as the deprivations and shocking realities of war build up, Campbell's performance maintains its air of innocence, a tone that fails to reflect Beatrice's maturation and exposure to brutality. Although Campbell's strong characterizations and realistic accents augment the listener's connection to the story, her Irish inflections are uneven, causing Beatrice's lilt to fade in and out. C.B.L. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

Moore (The Big Girls, 2007, etc.) focuses a narrow flashlight on World War II, specifically the daily struggles of an aristocratic couple that remains in Germany despite abhorring the Third Reich. In 1938 County Mayo, bookish 18-year-old Beatrice is desperate to escape her humdrum life. So she is thrilled when a visiting German countess, impressed by Beatrice's lace work, offers to take her to Berlin as a lace maker for the fabulously wealthy Metzenburgs. Countess Inéz is unaware that the German government, angry with Felix Metzenburg for refusing an ambassadorship, has requisitioned the Metzenburgs' elegant home. Soon, they decamp to their rural estate with their fabulous collection of art and objects in tow, along with Beatrice and a couple of their most loyal retainers. For the next seven years, Beatrice bears witness as the Metzenburgs attempt a life of grace despite the war. At first, it is hard to tell whether Felix is a man of scruples or just "exquisite taste" and extremely good manners. But details accrue: his protection of the Jewish intellectual who teaches German to a smitten Beatrice, the odd mix of guests who pass through, the treasures he hides for friends and those he trades for food, the refugees he takes in. By the time conquering Soviets take Felix away for questioning, he has become a saintly figure in Beatrice's eyes. Meanwhile, Felix's devoted wife, Dorothea, whose Jewish heritage is an open secret, becomes a tough survivor, as does Beatrice herself. And then there's Inéz, captivating but elusive. Actually Cuban (and Felix's former lover), she divorces her German count for an Egyptian prince but continues to flitter in and out of Germany. Maddeningly selfish and superficial but surprisingly generous, she leaves Beatrice wondering, is she WWII-era Eurotrash or a skillful spy? Moore's subject is rectitude. Even when the subject matter is graphically horrendous, the narration remains as reserved and understated as the Metzenburgs, who prefer not to reveal how deeply they feel, how willingly they sacrifice, how daringly they risk.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169544299
Publisher:	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date:	09/18/2012
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

The Life of Objects

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By Susanna Moore

Knopf

Copyright © 2012 Susanna Moore
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780307268433

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The smiling brother and sister who were at Christmas lunch left for Spain at the end of March, hoping to make their way to Algiers. Dorothea was angry when she discovered that Felix had given them the exit visas, perhaps imagining that they themselves might one day use them. It was the only quarrel I ever knew them to have --- whether to fly to safety or to stay at Löwendorf. Once Felix gave away the passes, it would be difficult for the Metzenburgs to leave the country. Kreck told me that Dorothea had considered for a moment going to Copenhagen, where she had cousins, but the Nazis invaded Denmark the first week of April, and she did not mention it again.
 

When a family of smiling gypsies appeared in the stable yard, Frau Schmidt flung open a kitchen window and screamed, “Raus, ihr Schweine, oder ich lasse euch verprugeln!” Get out, you swine, or I’ll have you thrashed. The gypsies did not bother to answer or even to look at her, sauntering down the avenue, followed by Felix’s dogs.

When I saw that one of the boys carried Bessie, Felix’s favorite brown-and-white spaniel, I put down my work and rushed after them. When the boy saw me, he gave a loud laugh and threw Bessie high into the air. She fell on the grass unharmed and I was able to grab her collar, but the other dogs ran after the gypsies, ignoring my command to heel. When, a few minutes later, the dogs came yelping into the yard, there were only two of them.

It was uncommon to see strangers at Löwendorf, but workers from Poland, many of them young and wearing the letter P on their clothes, had begun to appear in the village soon after the war began, headed for Ludwigsfelde and other nearby cities. The conscripted foreign workers, sent to work on the land when the farmers were mobilized, were tormented by the farmers’ children, and the farmers’ wives gave them only a portion of the meager rations allotted the workers by the government. Some of them soon escaped to find their way home, but others came to the Yellow Palace after dark for food. Felix instructed Kreck to give them cheese, bread, and beer. Fortunately there was enough for everyone. Cows had begun to disappear mysteriously from the village, and it was growing hard to find good. When Caspar came upon bits of hide from Felix’s prize Friesians, he lost his head, running across the park with the reeking skins in his hands. Alarmed by his cries, we rushed into the stable yard. “People are hungry,” Felix said quietly as he led Casper to the pump to wash his hands.

Soon after this, Felix asked Kreck how much food was held in reserve at Löwendorf. Along with their treasure, the Metzenburgs had brought champagne and wine, Turkish tobacco, gramophone records, and books from Berlin, but not much food, relying on the countryside to supply the needs of the estate.  A levy of grain, meat, and poultry was by law sent each month to the army, with rapid and dire punishment for hoarding, resulting in a shortage of food, with inevitable speculation, even in a small village like Löwendorf. The quality of food was beginning to suffer (flour mixed with sawdust).

Kreck reported that we had stores of rice, potatoes, salt, dried fruit, cheese, flour, jam, and vegetables (not much coffee, sugar, or oil), and, of course, the wine from the old baroness’s cellar. There was enough animal fodder, hay and oats to last to the next harvest.

 
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The village women engaged by Dorothea as maids stopped coming to the house that spring, and the old men who worked as grooms and gardeners disappeared. I began to help in the kitchen and in the laundry, and Caspar and I worked in the garden. In Ballycarra, I’d swept the house, washed dishes, and made beds, but I was not used to working outside. I soon discovered that I preferred it to other work. As I bent to lift a basket of potatoes or reached to hang sheets on the line, I could feel the strength streaming through my arms and down my back, and it made me happy.

A certain amount of time was necessary to prepare dinner, given the numerous ways to cook and, what was perhaps more important, to present root vegetables. I learned from Schmidt six recipes for potatoes (which for an Irishwoman is something). Caspar’s ferret caught rabbits, and I learned to skin and clean them. We bottled fruit from the orchard and hid the jars in the basement.

            Roeder, who’d made it clear that any responsibility other than caring for Dorothea would be met with resentment, was soon worn down by the simple fact that she, too, required nourishment–I noticed that she was willing to perform any task deemed sufficiently refined for one in her position. Shelling peas fell into this category, as did watering the topiary on the terrace and making toast, although scouring pots, cleaning the stove, or washing sheets did not qualify. As she wore black lace gloves at all times, I had never seen her bare hands, and I still didn’t see them.  

Kreck tended the door, although there were no longer many visitors, and saw to the general running of the house, as well as serving at table with Caspar’s assistance (Caspar, to Kreck’s begrudging admiration, was a flawless servant). I offered to polish the parquet floors, which seemed only to require me to skate soundlessly through the rooms, arms clasped behind my back, feet wrapped in pieces of old carpet, but Kreck refused my help, perhaps because he liked to skate himself.

Kreck was also in charge of the ration books. Each citizen of the Reich was meant to receive seven ration cards a month, but the number of calories was continually reduced, the cards difficult to obtain and frequently unavailable. Blue was for meat; yellow for cheese, milk and yoghurt; white for jam and sugar; green for eggs; orange for bread. Pink was for rice, cereal, flour, tea, and coffee substitutes. Purple was for sweets, nuts, and fruit. Seafood was impossible to find because of the mining of coastal waters and the war in the Atlantic. The coffee substitute, called nigger sweat, was made of roasted acorns, and we counted ourselves fortunate when Kreck could find it.
                       

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On the tenth day of May, the Germans violated the neutrality of Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg in a surprise attack led by the Tank Corps, with a view to invading France at its weakest point. On the thirteenth, as anticipated, the German army crossed the Meuse and entered France. In June, we heard the news that Italy had joined the war on the side of the Axis, which confirmed to some, although not to Felix, that the rapid defeat of England and France was imminent. Thousands of Jews who had managed to leave Germany were arrested and sent to work camps.

Not a week passed when something did not arrive from the Metzenburgs’ friends in Berlin for Felix to hide. Silver teapots and rolled canvases were easily managed, but chairs and tables—even an organ on a wagon drawn by two weary horses—were more difficult (Felix sent the organ back to Berlin with his regrets). Kreck, convinced that we were surrounded by enemies, refused to hire boys from the village and Caspar unloaded the treasure before wrapping it in canvas and packing it in metal-lined trunks. They were like actors on a stage, illuminated by lanterns, as Kreck would only allow Caspar to empty the wagons after dark, pacing and waving his arms (I once heard Kreck say, “This is a very inferior Reubens, my dear”). It soon became necessary for Felix to draw a map of the location of all the buried and hidden treasure, the Metzenburgs’ as well as that of their friends, which he kept in his waistcoat pocket.
 
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The summer was unusually hot, with frequent thunderstorms. Hundreds of redhead smews arrived on the river and I made sketches of them for Mr. Knox.

When I could find time, I worked in the library, packing books. Shortly before tea, Kreck would arrive to change the blotting paper on the desks. The mother of Frau Metzenburg had been abruptly exiled to Löwendorf in 1919, according to Kreck, thanks to a careless maid who’d forgotten to change the paper. Herr Schumacher had held the compromising blotter to a mirror in order to read the letter his wife had written that morning to her lover, and Kreck did not want it to happen again. His moustache made him look as if he were always smiling, a deception that fooled me for some time, and I couldn’t tell if he was teasing me.

I’d discovered that before coming to Löwendorf, Herr Elias had been a teacher at the Youth Aliyah School in Berlin, where he had prepared Jewish children for emigration to Palestine, teaching Hebrew and Zionist history. After Kristallnacht, Felix, who’d met Herr Elias through a dealer in rare books, had arranged for him to leave Berlin to teach at Löwendorf. The village children, whose idea of a Jew was a man with horns, had quickly grown attached to Herr Elias, who lived in the village, perhaps because he played music for them on his gramophone, and fed them.

I was surprised one evening by a small black bear in a ruffled skirt that had strolled away from some Hungarians busy stealing fruit in the orchard. Fortunately, she was tame, and when I turned to run, she did not chase me.            
     
                            
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When I spoke to the Metzenburgs, I addressed them as Herr Felix and Frau Dorothea, but that summer they began to call me Maeve, rather than Miss Palmer. Felix preferred the company of as many people as possible, and I was occasionally asked to join them in the dining room. I wasn’t asked if guests were expected, but visitors had become rare at Löwendorf. The Metzenburgs’ isolation was difficult for Felix, accustomed as he was to brilliant conversation (or so I imagined), if not the distraction of sophisticated companions, but Dorothea did not seem to mind it at all. I seldom saw her. During the day, she drove to the village to visit the sick, taking them clothes and medicine, and to call on the old people who’d been left behind, often without food or money, when their sons were sent to the front. I’d noticed that a house, a dog, a child, or even a crisis often enabled, if not compelled, people to remain together. It gave them, among other things, a subject. I was not the Metzenburgs’ subject, but I provided an easy distraction for them while they learned to be alone. It was not my conversation that was sought, but my presence, which both inhibited and stimulated them.

I was a bit stiff at first, and always five minutes too early in the dining room, having raced to change my clothes after I helped Caspar and Schmidt to prepare dinner (the first night, I caught Dorothea staring at Inéz’s black dress, trying to remember where she’d seen it before). It didn’t take long to learn that it was considered bad luck to hand a saltcellar to someone rather than to place it before him, and that one did not say “God bless” at the start of a meal. If, for some reason, you had to leave the table, you did not do so without first asking to be excused. You did not drink tea with dinner, as did my mother. You did not use your napkin to wipe anything other than your mouth, as did my father. You did not eat with animals on your lap, as did some of the Metzenburgs’ friends (I didn’t count Mr. Knox and his gull, who always took tea with us).

The Metzenburgs kept to their vow not to speak at night about the war, talking instead about books and paintings, or the care of the estate—the weirs needed to be cleaned and the fields planted (there was no seed and no one to plant it), but most of the time they, too, were silent. When they spoke to friends on the telephone, they used a code, grinning slyly, that seemed alarmingly obvious to me—horses meant England, chickens meant Germany, peacocks meant France, bears meant Russia—but fortunately there seldom were telephone calls.

They often listened to the gramophone, perhaps a recording from 1936 of Der Rosenkavalier, or Karajan conducting Straus. When Dorothea said that Strauss wrote Ein Heldenleben (we were listening to it for the second night in a row) after a quarrel with his wife, the jarring notes reminiscent of his wife’s voice, Felix asked her where in the world she heard such nonsense. He thought it very romantic of her to countenance everything that she heard. As he believed that things could be made perfect, which was to me the most romantic idea of all, his condescension seemed unjust. I waited for Dorothea’s answer, but she was silent, bent over a book on Japanese moss gardens. “It was Strauss,” Felix said as an afterthought, “who expressed his gratitude to the Führer for his interest in art.” He paused. “It presents a conflict, of course, but there are greater ones.”

Most nights, however, we listened to dance music. I looked forward to it, the songs going through my head all the following day. I was fond of the French heartthrob Jean Sablon, especially his song “Two Sleepy People.” And Lys Gauty, whose song “La Chaland qui passé” made me sad (Felix noticed its effect on me and pointed out that it was a song about a barge). Felix preferred Adam Aston, particularly when he sang “Cocktails for Two” in Polish, and I wondered if it reminded him of a love affair, or two. Once, while listening to The Threepenny Opera, music banned by the Nazis, Felix and Dorothea rose with a smile at the start of “Wie Man Sich Bettet” and danced to it.

When it was time for the news, Dorothea preferred a program on Berlin radio called Atlantis. It was very popular, perhaps because it featured gossip about the Nazis, and it left her less frightened than the other broadcasts. There were frequent reports of Eva Braun’s brother-in-law and of Reichsmarschall Göring, who liked to entertain foreign diplomats while wearing gold leather shorts, his toenails painted red. Felix said that the program clearly had many informants, as the scandal was often only a day or two old, and almost always accurate, which made me wonder how he knew.

It was after an evening of listening to music with Felix and Dorothea that I slipped the amber cigarette holder, the silver dish, the gloves, and the pen that I’d hidden in my room into a drawer of a desk in the library, keeping only Felix’s batiste handkerchief. 

Continues...

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Excerpted from The Life of Objects by Susanna Moore Copyright © 2012 by Susanna Moore. Excerpted by permission of Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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