Women in Christopher Koch's novels.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)

SIR: In her review (March 2008) of Christopher Koch's latest novel The Memory Room, Sophie Masson drew attention to several of Koch's major female characters, listing these as forerunners to the character of Erika Lange. Masson described Erika as "a kind of culmination and distillation" of a listing of female characters in what might be termed a chronological progression of Koch's better-known novels.

As Masson's choice of words suggests, and as anyone who studies writing knows, an alchemy that transcends analysis takes place in fiction. However, at the risk of seeming at first to present a scholastic dissection reminiscent of angels pirouetting on pinpoints, I draw attention also to the schoolgirl who appears briefly, early in The Doubleman. This charming little figure, presented in the nostalgic manner perfected by Koch, seems also to be a precursor of Erika:

 
   A pallid, delicate-looking 
   blonde girl of about twelve, 
   whose name I never knew, 
   passed each day at four on her 
   way home from school; she 
   would look up and smile at me, 
   from under her brown felt hat. 
   Her face was wistful, perhaps 
   tragic, and I waited for her 
   every afternoon, telling myself 
   that I loved her. 

Some months ago, Frank Devine remarked that Koch's earlier novel Across the Sea Wall (1965) bears further examination, and this too is fruitful in evaluation of the modelling of the character of Erika. When reading The Memory Room myself, I was struck by the sensation that Erika was familiar--re-reading Across the Sea Wall, the reason for this sensation was made clear, as I became reacquainted with the character of Ilsa Kalnins. It is as though this character, drawn even in this earlier and much shorter work with Koch's wonderful sympathy and skill, had been revisited.

Using the Sirius edition of 1982 (Koch's revised version) I draw particular attention to certain passages in which Ilsa manifests the romantic figure of a girl in an overcoat and hat, who stands beside one of those highways to the Otherworld that register so frequently in Koch's writing. One such passage occurs early in the novel, setting the tone for what follows. This enigmatic, alluring and ultimately tragic female is a Northerner, a blonde European, and one whose spirit, like that of Erika, is deeply damaged by her past. Neither Ilsa nor Erika is blameless as to the course of their lives, for each has their human flaws. Masson asserts that "[t]here is no moralising in Koch's novels". I would qualify this: Koch seldom moralises directly, and it is the larger reality that must be observed, as well as the detail in his work. Masson is more accurate in her assertion that Koch "never preaches", although in The Doubleman, Richard Miller tells Deidre Dillon ...