A 17th Century German Hymn to Summer

Paul Gerhardt was already a familiar name before I went for a walk around the Nikolaiviertel (St. Nicholas Quarter) here in Berlin, around 2023. But as I was treading setts, rounding the medieval stone church that lent the quarter its name, and looking up at the half-timbered houses cuddled around the house of worship,* I was surprised to find a plaque to Gerhardt. — *That said, the church and houses were in fact rebuilt here from post-World War II ruins by the former German Democratic Republic when Berlin celebrated its 750th anniversary in the 1980s. They are not the originals that a visitor would have seen in the Baroque period. — In a way he was a Berliner; he moved here after studying at the University of Wittenberg, in 1643. Starting in 1657, he was employed as the pastor of the Nikolaikirche.

He was a Lutheran theologian and hymn writer whose oeuvre is still known today. A few of his verses — written in the clear and peculiarly grounded style of his generation — are standard modern Christmas repertoire, with fittingly beautiful musical settings, in Germany. "Wie soll ich dich empfangen" and "Ich steh' an deiner Krippen hier"** are perhaps the most famous.

Perhaps they are also especially poignant because of the difficult times in which Paul Gerhardt lived. To quote from Wikipedia:

Wie viele andere Familien in Kursachsen hatten auch die Gerhardts unter den Folgen des Dreißigjährigen Krieges – Hungersnot, Seuchen und den Übergriffen der Soldaten – zu leiden. 1619 starb sein Vater, 1621 seine Mutter.

In other words: the Gerhardts had settled in Saxony-Anhalt during the Thirty Years' War. His family suffered from famine, pestilence, and marauding soldiers, to the point that his parents both died by the time he was 15 years old. Paul had an older brother and two younger sisters at the time, the article adds. The rest of his biography, a litany of personal tragedy, also has overtones of Voltaire's Candide.

Even decades later, when Gerhardt arrived in Berlin in 1643, the Thirty Years' War was still being fought, and the fighting as well as dysentery, a plague, and smallpox had reduced the city's population by more than half. So, although of course interpreting authors' works through their biographies is rather more of a 19th-century approach than an approach that 21st-century literary theoreticians would support, I will venture to say it is for this reason that there is always a chiaroscuro, in the sense of blended effects of light and darkness, in Gerhardt's works.

** "Wie soll ich dich empfangen" was scored by Johann Sebastian Bach in his Christmas Oratorio as well as by Johann Crüger; I like both settings, and recordings of both are easily discoverable on YouTube. "Ich steh' an deiner Krippen hier" has also been 'done' by Bach, as well as by Georg Christian Schemelli.

Labors of the Months: June, from a Flemish Book of Hours (Bruges)
Painted in early 16th century by Simon Bening
via Wikimedia Commons

*

Rather than dwell on Paul Gerhardt's well-known Advent songs, I want to write about a summer poem, "Geh aus, mein Herz, und suche Freud." — In German one would call its subject matter a Kontrastprogramm ('programme of contrast') to the drab weather of a north German November.

For brevity's sake, I'm only offering rough translations of the first seven verses of the original fifteen. For indolence's sake, I've not even attempted to keep the AABCCB rhyme scheme.

Geh aus, mein Herz, und suche Freud
in dieser lieben Sommerzeit
an deines Gottes Gaben;
Schau an der schönen Gärten Zier,
und siehe, wie sie mir und dir
sich ausgeschmücket haben.

Go forth, my heart, and search for joy / in this dear summer time / from your God's gifts; / Look on the pretty gardens' ornament, / and see how they, for me and you, / have put on decorations.

Die Bäume stehen voller Laub,
das Erdreich decket seinen Staub
mit einem grünen Kleide;
Narzissus und die Tulipan,
die ziehen sich viel schöner an
als Salomonis Seide.

The trees stand full of leaf / the earthen realm has decked its dust / with a green dress; / daffodil and tulip, / these put on their clothes more beautifully / than Solomon his silk.

Die Lerche schwingt sich in die Luft,
das Täublein fliegt aus seiner Kluft
und macht sich in die Wälder;
die hochbegabte Nachtigall
ergötzt und füllt mit ihrem Schall
Berg, Hügel, Tal und Felder.

The lark wings into the air, / the little dove flies from its rocky cleft / and makes for the woods; / the highly skilled nightingale / amuses and fills with her sound / the mountain, valley, hills, and fields.

Die Glucke führt ihr Völklein aus,
der Storch baut und bewohnt sein Haus,
das Schwälblein speist die Jungen,
der schnelle Hirsch, das leichte Reh
ist froh und kommt aus seiner Höh
ins tiefe Gras gesprungen.

The mother hen leads out her folk, / the stork builds and tenants his house, / the swallow feeds her young, / the fleet stag, the light-footed deer / is joyous and comes down from its height / leaping into the deep grass.

Die Bächlein rauschen in dem Sand
und malen sich an ihrem Rand
mit schattenreichen Myrten;
die Wiesen liegen hart dabei
und klingen ganz vom Lustgeschrei
der Schaf und ihrer Hirten.

The little brooks rush in the sand / and paint themselves upon their banks / myrtles full of shadows; / the meadows lie fast by / and fairly ring from happy cries / of sheep and of their shepherds.

Die unverdrossne Bienenschar
fliegt hin und her, sucht hier und da
ihr edle Honigspeise;
des süßen Weinstocks starker Saft
bringt täglich neue Stärk und Kraft
in seinem schwachen Reise.

The unperturbed swarm of bees / flies to and fro, seeking here and there / its fine repast of honey; / the sweet grapevine's rich juice / daily brings new strength and force / in its feeble shoot.

Der Weizen wächset mit Gewalt;
darüber jauchzet jung und alt
und rühmt die große Güte
des, der so überfließend labt,
und mit so manchem Gut begabt
das menschliche Gemüte.

The wheat grows with mighty force; / young and old rejoice thereat/ and praise the great goodness / of him, who refreshes so abundantly, / and many a good thing bestows / upon the human spirit.

August 2025 in Books: What I've Been Reading

In the quest to find books from the Democratic Republic of the Congo for my reading journey around the world, I stumbled across The Laughing Cry by Henri Lopes, translated into English by Gerald Moore. The author was born in Kinshasa but ended up living in the Republic of the Congo, so the book might not count for my project.

It's a relevant, skeptical look – written in a post-modern, self-reflexive style narrated by a fictional maitre-d'-turned-butler at the dictator's palace ... but the butler's narrative is interrupted by the dictator's musings, as well as a former high-level government secretary's feedback on the butlers fictional script – at postcolonial African government leaders.

The archvillain of the novel is perhaps the dictator, Bwakamabé Na Sakkadé. He deposes the last leader, Polépolé. Afterward he wallows in the luxuries of an (arguably unearned) leadership role in a manner like that of the current US president, although it's clear that in comparison to the rich history of authoritarianism the Trump administration is still leaving unexplored a time-honoured spectrum of possible gruesome excesses.

I say that 'perhaps the dictator' is the arch villain, because the self-aggrandizing Sakkadé seems a foolish figure as much as a villainous one. Besides it is not clear that there is a hero. The whole cast of characters, including the philandering narrator, French diplomats, and the young intellectual dissidents who are clear-eyed about the regime but less clear-eyed about the alternatives, is morally ambiguous.

Front cover of The Laughing Cry (1982)
From the English edition's publisher: Readers International

As Lopes was writing in the early 1980s, the diplomatic challenges of heads of state are those of the late Cold War: the dictator and his opposition appeal alternately to their former Western colonizers (the "Uncles"), or to the Soviet Union. Flashbacks scattered amongst the plot and character intrigues recall French colonial history, in particular. For example, Algeria's war of independence is not long past. The dictator is of the generation that fought for France in World War II, and the war in then-French Indochina.

Lopes himself was Prime Minister of then-Congo-Brazzaville in the 1970s. So the milieu he is picking apart in The Laughing Cry (in the original French: Le Pleurer-Rire) is, surprisingly, the milieu in which he once played the leading role.

The Laughing Cry is thematically similar to NoViolet Bulawayo's Glory – which is still on my currently-reading list.

A Thoreau Thought for Easter

It may be a passage from the end of an essay by Henry David Thoreau that I have not fully read ("Walking," from the 1850s). It may be describing a scene that Thoreau saw in November. It may also be a bit of a mishmash between ancient Greek and 19th-century American Christian religion.

Springtime (early 1920s), by Ugo Flamiani
via Wikimedia Commons

But I think that this sprig of nature philosophy still feels timely, as I enter the Easter weekend:

We walked in so pure and bright a light, gilding the withered grass and leaves, so softly and serenely bright, I thought I had never bathed in such a golden flood, without a ripple or a murmur to it. The west side of every wood and rising ground gleamed like the boundary of Elysium, and the sun on our backs seemed like a gentle herdsman driving us home at evening.

So we saunter toward the Holy Land, till one day the sun shall shine more brightly than ever he has done, shall perchance shine into our minds and hearts, and light up our whole lives with a great awakening light, as warm and serene and golden as on a bank-side in autumn.

The essay — although Thoreau had read it aloud in lecture halls before — was first printed shortly after his death, in 1862.

***

Source: Essays and Other Writings of Henry David Thoreau. Will H. Dircks, ed.
     London: Walter Scott Press

April 2025 In Books: What I'm Reading

It was on National Public Radio's list of the best books of 2024, so I've just finished reading The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder by C L Miller and found it a pleasant distraction from a busy week at university. The British author draws on family knowledge of the antiques trade to set up a murder mystery where Freya Lockwood, an ex-antiques expert turned housewife and mother, reluctantly attempts to resolve the death of her former mentor. It was so soothing and likable, despite being literarily a little wobbly on its legs like a baby deer, that I have immediately begun listening to the audiobook of its 2025 sequel, The Antique Hunter's: Death on the Red Sea.

Cover of The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder
via Goodreads

Also on my list:

Kelly Bishop: The Third Gilmore Girl (audiobook memoir, read by the author)

Hampton Sides: The Wide Wide Sea (Captain James Cook biography, hardcover, gift from godfather)

Jane Austen: Sense and Sensibility

Muhammad Abdul Bari: The Rohingya Crisis

March 2025 in Books: What I've Been Reading

In March, I finished the books All Our Ordinary Stories by Teresa Wong and Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here by Jonathan Blitzer, and felt satisfied with the progress through my to-be-read list. In Leipzig, the book fair took place as well, but this year it took place without me due to my lingering cold and other personal factors.

All Our Ordinary Stories (cover)
Arsenal Pulp Press

I also 'binged' the 2025 Canada Reads competition on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation channel (YouTube). The friendly and attentive circle of panellists who were drawn from the books, sports, cooking, and television worlds was — as online commentators noted — less bloodthirsty (for lack of a better word) than in previous years.

Teresa Wong's book is from the Canada Reads longlist.

Besides I've read A Two-Spirit Journey — co-authored by Ma-Nee Chacaby and Mary Louisa Plummer, it's a memoir of the extremely difficult life of an Indigenous woman born in the province Ontario — which made it onto the shortlist.

Next up on my Canadian, independently published reading list is another shortlisted book: Dandelion, by Jamie Chai Yun Liew.

Dandelion (cover)
Arsenal Pulp Press

A Two-Spirit Journey was not literarily written, some commentators said. But I thought it did have a style. Listening to it in the audiobook version, I did not find it dry either: I pictured scenes, people and times in my mind, and the spiritual world of Ma-Nee Chacaby's grandmother. On the other hand, I too found that reading about the abuse that the author suffered as a child was very heavy. (All I'll say is that I'd never considered the ethical pros and cons of castration in depth before; but this book led me into that train of thought.) But in the end I'm not sure it's a sound literary criterion to tell somebody that their life is so difficult that one doesn't want to read about it.

A Two-Spirit Journey (cover)
University of Manitoba Press

Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here is a lengthy look at United States immigration policy since the early 1900s. The journalist author (New Yorker) interweaves life stories of individual Latin American asylum seekers as case studies, convincingly arguing that US foreign policy missteps exacerbate problems in Latin American countries, resulting then in larger quantities of Latin Americans who flee to the southern US border.

It's stylistically a cross between an Amnesty International report and long-form magazine journalism. It's also a close portrait, in its final chapters, of a Trump administration's modus operandi when there are no 'adults in the room.' 

Where do we go from here, if there is not enough public support for making sure that every asylum seeker is well cared for?
— The Hippocratic Oath probably applies as well to immigration and foreign policy matters as to medicine: First do no harm.
And I think that part of 'doing no harm' means not making refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants scapegoats for socio-economic problems that already would have existed without them.

Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here (cover)
Penguin Press