Karen Duve writes about Sisi in the saddle | free press

by time news

Karen Duve’s new novel is dedicated to a 19th-century cult figure. The title has only four letters: “Sisi”. It’s about horseback riding, intrigues, amorous fantasies and getting older.

Berlin.

Actually, Karen Duve wanted to write a book about horses. But then it turned out to be a novel about Elisabeth of Austria. Sound crazy? Not necessarily.

Horses also played a central role in the life of the Empress, who became legendary as “Sisi”. “I didn’t know anything about that before, I only knew the films with Romy Schneider and I was rather indifferent to Sisi,” says Duve. “But it didn’t stay that way. Like everyone who has ever had anything to do with her, I was quickly fascinated.” You can see that in her novel “Sisi” from beginning to end.

There is a lot of material on the cult empress

“Your ladies-in-waiting, your riding instructors, your cavaliers, they were all irradiated, in love, out of control,” says the Hamburg-born author (“Regenroman”, “Taxi”), who now lives not far from Berlin in Märkische Schweiz . “You entered her service with reservations or even dislike, and two weeks later you were totally addicted to her.”

Duve (60), who shares her love of horses with Sisi, read books by the yard about the cult empress (1837 to 1898). “When I realized how much material there is: Oh God, you can reconstruct it exactly,” she says of her research. “Almost every single day of Elisabeth’s life has been reported, sometimes by seven different people for the same hour.” In her novel, the author focuses on Sisi in her late thirties – similar to Marie Kreutzer’s historical drama “Corsage”, which hit the cinemas in early July.

It was a highly dramatic period in Sisi’s life, says Duve. “It’s the moment when the most beautiful woman in the world begins to age.” Horses, her favorite daughter and her own beauty – these were Sisi’s passions. “Maybe she’s thinking: if I’m insanely beautiful, I’m safe, the belief that her power resides in her attraction and beauty.”

Veal schnitzel on the face for beauty

There’s tremendous drama in that, Duve thinks. After all, aging is not for cowards. “When Sisi isn’t riding, she’s busy delaying aging and becoming even more beautiful instead. She does gymnastics, starves and puts veal cutlets on her face,” says the author. “Alone this madness with the hair, which must have weighed more than a kilo and had to be carried to bed after her to torment herself with it.”

At the same time, Duve portrays Sisi as an almost obsessed horsewoman who does not shy away from risk in the saddle, but even looks for danger. She prefers to travel to England and then take part in fox hunts, which have the reputation of being literally breakneck. “Oh Festi,” she says to her most trusted lady-in-waiting, who then panics again. “Now don’t worry so much.” But they are not entirely unjustified: “The House of Lords is full of wheelchairs – all hunting accidents,” as Duve writes with a great sense of comedy.

She is only happy when riding

Sisi is unimpressed by something like that. Riding a horse is her world, not that of the stiff court ceremonies in Vienna, where her husband, Emperor Franz Joseph, gets up every night before dawn to attend to government business, which Sisi is not the least bit interested in. No wonder Captain Bay Middleton gets so close to her in England, a brilliant rider like her. How far this went has not been historically clarified.

Duve’s Sisi is multi-layered. She can be sensitive and then callous, sometimes downright scheming – with her staff as well as with close relatives. “Sisi consists of ten different people, four of whom are unsympathetic and six who are very charming,” says Duve. “But you never know which ones you might meet.” She is only happy when she is riding – then she lights up, no obstacle is too difficult for her, no ditch too wide. But luck is limited: After all, even an empress has to unsaddle every now and then.

Karen DuveSisi. Galiani Berlin, 408 pages, 26,00 euros, ISBN 978-3-86971-210-9 (dpa)

You may also like

Leave a Comment