Perlefter (2 page)

The Perlefter children are comically drawn. They are not given the same detailed consideration as Perlefter himself, but Roth is masterful at accomplishing much in a short space. Each Perlefter child has his or her own
particular faults (whether foolishness or vanity or even intelligence), and, although seemingly hopeless at first, each one seems to achieve some measure of maturity and redemption by the close of
Chapter VII
. Roth devotes the most energy to Fredy, who is a classic wealthy and indifferent bourgeois, as are his friends.

In
Perlefter
affluence leads not to happiness but to insecurity, indecision, dissatisfaction and even boredom. Perlefter desires to marry off his children well, yet when he achieves this dream and his son marries into a very wealthy family under the surface he is actually not happy; he is jealous. Herr Kofritz is
too
rich,
too
influential, and it annoys Perlefter to have to brag about this new in-law. And in what must also be bothersome to Perlefter, Herr Kofritz steals Fredy away by taking the young man into his thriving leather business.

Yes, happiness is elusive for the entire Perlefter clan. The only one who seems happy in the book is Leo Bidak, who does not let anything ruin his mood (Kroj
would
be happy if only he could be with Henriette). Leo Bidak is decidedly
not
bourgeois. He has not achieved that status, not even with his half-house, and his lack of business skills and participation in socialist activities further removes him from bourgeois status. Bidak's ineptitude with money causes him to lose his half of the house. Life has scoffed at Leo Bidak, yet he does not care.

In total, the original manuscript of
Perlefter
consists of thirty-two pages. Written in Roth's characteristic tiny handwriting, it is messy in spots, over-inked in some places and faint and faded in other spots. Yet, considering its status as an unfinished work it is surprisingly clean. There are strike-outs of words and phrases here and there and only occasionally whole sentences (in fact, in the entire manuscript of almost 30,000 words there are only twelve instances where Roth crossed out an entire sentence), but never a whole paragraph. Most are isolated incidents except for a couple of places – for example, near the end of
Chapter II
where Roth had crossed out three sentences but then restored ‘He wanted to leave the house' and at the beginning of
Chapter IV
where he struck out two sentences within close proximity to one another.

Although after reading the entire novel it might seem that the disconnect of
Chapter I
from the rest of the book might imply that it was actually supposed to be part of some other novel, the page numbering of the manuscript seems consistent with the idea that it was (if not immediately, then eventually) meant to be together with the rest of the book.
Chapter I
consists of four manuscript pages, half-sized sheets of paper as compared with the rest of the manuscript. The first page is not numbered, but the following two pages are numbered 2 and 3. The final page of
Chapter I
is not numbered.
Chapter II
begins on
page 4
, which would lead one to believe that continuity was intended, although perhaps after some hesitation as to the
direction of the novel.
Perlefter
begins in a similar fashion to
Hotel Savoy,
with a seven-storey hotel, but the interesting hotel anecdote is abandoned, standing on its own as a micro-story as the narration moves on to Kroj's situation. Indeed, the first chapter seems to be just a device to get Kroj from his little town into the Perlefter household.

In Roth's manuscript the end of
Chapter I
is a little choppy. On that unnumbered fourth sheet of paper there is an inch or two of vertical distance between the sentence where Kroj announces that he arrived in Vienna in 1904 and the next sentence beginning ‘It was six o'clock …' almost as if that were meant to be the opening of a new chapter. At the very end of
Chapter I
, following the last sentence in the published version – ‘Here, one could already hear summer's approach …' – there was more in Roth's manuscript, another sentence, part of which was struck out by the author but part of which was not. Roth left four words hanging at the end of the sheet of paper (not printed in the published version), hence the ellipses. It is quite possible, given the choppy state of
Chapter I
's closing, that it was left unfinished – the fact that Roth in
Chapter II
says ‘As I have already mentioned' when he has not done so seems to bear this out. Certainly
Chapter I
could have ended with ‘On the 28th of April 1904 I arrived in Vienna', but that would create a very abrupt jump into the start of
Chapter II
: ‘I think that now is the time to reveal Perlefter's first name.'

The remainder of
Chapter I
(the paragraphs that
follow the mention of Kroj's date of arrival) is helpful as a bridge to
Chapter II
, but it seems not to go far enough. It offers promise, and then it ends. Kroj goes into great detail to describe the sights, sounds and smells of the waking city of Vienna, such that we would assume he will then go on to tell us about his actual arrival at Perlefter's house (which would have been quite interesting), but this descriptive narrative is abandoned, and we rather suddenly launch into
Chapter II
and a description of Perlefter. Or, more accurately,
Chapter I
ends and
Chapter II
does not pick up where the opening chapter left off.

Aside from the questionable
Chapter I
/
Chapter II
transition, the continuity of the manuscript from chapters II through VII is well defined. And, although the introduction of Leo Bidak may seem odd, there is no sign within the original manuscript that it was not intended to be part of the story; the page numbers between
Chapters VII
and
VIII
are continuous.

There are few concrete chronological clues to work with in the book. The most definite of them is April 1904, when the narrator Kroj arrives at Perlefter's house (or, more precisely, arrives in Vienna), presumably a young teenager at that time (and the only instance in the book when an actual date is given). All other dates are by inference or by reference to a particular event.

The chronology is hard to follow because the narrative in the second chapter remains in 1904 only briefly then flashes back to Perlefter's childhood (presumably around the 1880s) and early career in the
late nineteenth century (before Kroj's arrival; in 1904 Kroj already references Perlefter as a rich man established in the timber industry). Rather than an introduction to the entire Perlefter family as it exists in 1904 we get scattered clues (there is a wife, there are four children). Strangely, it is not until
Chapter V
that we actually learn the names of the Perlefter children. It is as if the narrator Kroj is as obsessed with Perlefter as Perlefter is with himself; only when he has exhausted his description of Perlefter's character and life that we learn more details about the rest of the family; only when he has shipped Perlefter off in an aeroplane do we get a look at the rest of household.

We know that Perlefter has several servants in the household, but not until
Chapter V
do we learn the name of one, Henriette. Kroj was already at Perlefter's when Henriette began to work for him at the age of eighteen (at one point Kroj references the fact that Henriette was then thirty years old and had arrived twelve years earlier). Kroj was two years younger than Henriette, so he was sixteen when she arrived, most likely not too long after he himself arrived in Vienna.

There are references to Kroj having served in the war and received medals and being taken to the club so Perlefter can show him off, probably around 1919 or so. Perlefter's flight also takes place shortly after the First World War, probably around 1919 or 1920. Logically speaking, if the main action in the second half of the book takes place after Perlefter's flight, 1919 at the earliest, then that would be fifteen years after Kroj's arrival,
placing Henriette's arrival twelve years earlier, around 1907, and thus Kroj's age at arrival in Vienna in 1904 to be twelve (if he was sixteen in 1907).

The most glaring chronology issue in the book seems to be centred on Perlefter's flight. When he leaves, the wind from the propeller is described as knocking down the children, which would lead one to believe they are small; the description of a fussy ‘young Perlefter boy' refusing to eat eggs and being given chocolate for dinner the evening of the flight seems to indicate the Fredy is a mere child. Similarly, Kroj at one point says of Fredy ‘at the time of Perlefter's flight, he was just beginning to grow and be healthy'. However, although Perlefter is supposedly gone for a little over two months, when he returns the children are all seemingly grown and of marriageable age.

Another chronology puzzle surrounds Perlefter's relative Leo Bidak. We are told in
Chapter VIII
that he arrived from San Francisco with his family at the age of forty-two, having missed the war (and presumably Perlefter's flight as well). Presumably this is during the early 1920s, but the narration immediately flashes back to Bidak's youth in Odessa and carries forward to a time when he and Kroj are friends, which is also presumably before the war. The book ends with the unfinished
Chapter X
, where Bidak goes to see Perlefter, but we know, based on the narrator's earlier statement, that he has not left Europe for America by this point, so this must have taken place about 1914 or earlier. One puzzling statement, if taken at face value, is the
mention of Bidak having lived through ‘several earthquakes'. In the early twentieth century, aside from the devastating 1906 quake, the only other one to hit San Francisco occurred in 1911. If we hold Roth to his word, chronologically speaking, that would place Bidak abroad for at least thirteen years, to have survived multiple tremors. Other Bidak-related clues are the fact that he married at twenty-three and then within four years had six children. If it is around 1921 when Bidak arrives from the USA, then it would have been 1902 when he married. The actual last action to take place in the book is Bidak's arrival itself at the beginning of
Chapter VIII
, about which we know nothing further. What follows is entirely a flashback or recounting of Bidak's early years, in which Perlefter makes only a cursory appearance.

The reader will also note that Kroj's father seems to have met the exact same fate as Bidak's father, a duplication Roth surely would have corrected had he finished the manuscript.

Perlefter
is very much a product of its time, both the larger era in which it was written and Roth's personal chronology. By this point in his career he already had enjoyed success as a journalist, completed several novels and enjoyed a growing reputation in the German-speaking world. By 1929 Roth was poised for even greater success, both literary and commercial. For all the flaws inherent in an unfinished manuscript, and
despite its relative lack of plot and abrupt ending,
Perlefter
is a remarkable book. Roth paints a number of deliciously ironic characters and, fragment or not, has left us with a work both enjoyable and satisfying to read.

Richard Panchyk

2013

My name is Naphtali Kroj.

The city in which I was born is no city at all compared with those in Western Europe. Fifteen hundred people lived there. Among these were a thousand Jewish merchants. A long street connected the station with the cemetery. The train came once a day. The travellers were hop merchants, for our city lay in a hop-growing region. There was a large hotel and a small one. The large one had been built by Wolf Bardach.

His mother was the operator of the steam baths. She died, age fifty-four, from a mysterious disease, a victim of her occupation. Her son, who had studied in the West and who wanted to become a notary, sold the steam baths so he could construct the Hotel Esplanade. He wanted the hotel to look very Western European – yes, even American. To this aim the hotel had to have at least six floors and four hundred rooms.

Futile were the reasonable comments of the many Jews that four hundred strangers would never come to our city. Herr Bardach himself designed the plans. He sent for many men from the great cities of the region. He wore golden pince-nez, a badge of his education, on
a silk band. He stood bareheaded, his fat form squeezed into a grey coat, with a stick in his hand when the sun was shining and with an umbrella when it was raining. He had such a sturdy building frame constructed that even with his great weight he could climb upon it without causing it any damage.

As the third storey was completed he noticed that he had no money left.

He sold the property and his plans to the rich Herr Ritz for less than a couple of thousand and, deeply ashamed, set off clandestinely for Vienna to become a notary.